Mediumship and Beyond

The words used by mediums, psychics and Spiritualists, may sometimes seem odd to those who are not into psychic speak. Here are simple explanations of a few common terms we like to use.

Aura:The aura is an ethereal phenomenon, made up of colours and surrounds the body in a sort of egg shape.  Whilst the  average person does not see it, a psychic can learn how to see it with practice. The colours shimmer, pulsate and change according to how the body and mind is reacting to outside influences. Some mediums can also read auras. They can tell you a lot about what is going on in and around your life, by studying your aura and its colours. Objects too have auras.

Circle or Psychic Circle:A circle is made when a group of people get together to practise their psychic and mediumistic skills. A group often work best when sitting in a circle, as each person can be seen by all, making communication between each other much easier. Anyone can attend an open circle at a Spiritualist church; it is a good place to learn more about psychics and mediumship and improve ones abilities.

Clairaudience (clear hearing): Some mediums have the gift of hearing voices or words within the head, that cannot be heard by the psychically undeveloped person. Again, it can be used by the medium when developed to a high degree, in order to pass information on to a sitter, from the spirit entities and loved ones on the higher side of life. It can be a bit like being a switchboard operator.

Clairsentience (clear sensing): This is another psychic gift used by mediums. It allows the medium to sense or feel things, including pain and emotion,  which are communicated from loved ones in the spirit world.

Clairvoyance (clear seeing): The ability to see images, pictures, and even spirits with the third eye: a place in the centre of the brow that is invisible to the  naked eye. When the third eye is well developed the medium can utilise it to help give proof of life after death.

Development Circle: In a development circle you learn how to develop psychic awareness. Such circles are usually held at a Spiritualist church, but can  be held at a private home by an experienced medium. So, as long as you learn the rules of opening and closing, as explained later, the open circle can be  a good experience.

Life After Death:When we human beings die, our body is no longer needed, hence the need for burial or cremation, but our spirit or soul moves on to the  spirit world to carry on its intended existence. This process is often referred to as Transition, but in fact it is our life after this life. Once transition has taken place, the spirit carries on with its progression and evolvement to a higher spiritual plane.

Medium:A medium, is someone who has developed their own psychic ability to such a degree that they have become aware of an ability to communicate  with spirit entities and loved ones who have passed over to the spirit world. Mediumship is not an inherent gift, though it is possible to develop dormant  skills. This book will teach you how.

Private Sitting: If a person wishes to receive a one-to-one message from a medium, they can book a private sitting. This can of course be free of charge,  but most often there is a fee. We all have to live and finance our homes and offices, and mediums are no exception, so most have to charge. Not many  people will or are able, to work for nothing.

At such a private sitting, you would expect to be given proof of life after death. This would involve being given evidence from a loved one of yours who has passed to the higher side of life. Information not previously known to the medium. This should prove that your loved ones were here on the earth plane and are still watching over you even now.

Psychic: A psychic is someone who uses senses that the average person is unaware of. We all have these psychic senses which are invisible, but which  can be develop to a high degree with time and effort. Smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing, are all physical senses of which we are all aware because we see evidence of them all the time, and indeed take them for granted. Unless you are a Spiritualist, or mix with those who use the psychic senses, you are probably unaware of them.

Psychometry: A sitter gives you a personal item to hold in order for you to give information about the past of the object and its owner. All things hold vibrations or data which has been left on them over time. Pure silk is the only item I know of that holds no vibrations, hence the reason Tarot readers keep their cards wrapped in it.

The reader holds the item and lets their psychic centres take in as much information as possible. It is a bit like being a sponge and soaking up the vibrations and then relating them to the sitter.

Psychic Art:A psychic artist is someone who has the gift of being able to see a spirit entity and draw them, usually at the same time as giving clairvoyance.  Sometimes, a second medium is in attendance to add to the clairvoyance.

A famous Psychic Artist was the late Coral Polge, who was a well respected Spiritualist. Coral, did drawings which were said to be very accurate and  the clairvoyant proof she added made the sitting more than interesting.

Sitter: A sitter is someone who ‘sits’ with a medium or psychic, either in a circle or privately, in order to receive a ‘message’ or reading from them.

Spiritualist Closed Circle: A closed circle is just for those invited along, private. It is usually open only to church members.

Spiritualist Open Circle: An open circle is usually held at a Spiritualist Church. People sit in a circle with others who are hoping to communicate with  someone in the spirit world. You may get a message from an experienced person or from a novice. You could also go to such a circle to practise your  own newly developed psychic gifts.

Transition: Our ‘death’ is just a transitory phase from this life to the next, it is in fact a continuation of our existence. We have come from the spirit world, it is our home, and at our earthly death we return to the spirit world. Taking our transition is almost like passing through a door into another dimension.  Only a thought away.

Vibrations: Are what the psychic or medium ‘reads’ when you have a sitting. Such vibrations can contain information about you the sitter, and your life.

If there are others you wish to know about or ones you think I ought to add to this list then please email me at the contact link on this page.

Are you feeling psychic?  Or are you developing the psychic gift of feeling ?  This gift is actually called Clairsentience.

Clairsentience is often the first psychic gift to develop.  It is simple and straightforward.  Those with such a gift begin to ‘smell’ the scents which spirit waft around.  This usually begins as scents from loved ones, such as the fragrance of your mother or father, or even your baby.

Eventually, when you give readings, it will be the scents of those who are communicating through you.  Scents which you can describe to your sitter and which will help prove survival after bodily death.

There is also the sense of pain.  This being really a sense and not actually pain.  It may be the pain your communicator felt at the time of their passing or the pain they felt regularly during their earthly life.  It may be a pain that your sitter is feeling.

There is also the feeling of emotion. This can be very unnerving at times.  It maybe the emotion that your communicator feels on seeing your sitter.  It maybe the emotion that they felt on passing over to the higher side of life.  Or maybe the fear which they felt as they were about to pass.

Whatever sense, smell, emotion, it maybe, you will just know it!

Clairsentience often accompanies clairaudience and they work hand in hand.  It can also work well with clairvoyance.  But of course, you cannot pick which gifts you have.  Just be very grateful for them and use them to help others.

A fully developed sixth sense brings this gift within your capabilities.  Clairaudience is the ability to hear, or more correctly, to hear things that those without the developed gift cannot hear.  Some say it is hearing para-normally.

Clairaudience occurs when the sixth sense is developed to such a degree that it allows thoughts and words to be heard within the head.  This is subjective, as opposed to the objective sounds that the average human ear picks up from outside the mind.

The thoughts and sounds seem to just be there,  and the receiver suddenly appears to know the information as though it were imprinted within the head.  A clairaudient may say to you  ‘I hear a man saying,’  but they do not hear it objectively, with their physical ears.   A Spirit does not have a physical body with which to make audible sounds.

A clairaudient medium will gather all the information which comes into their head and relay the message to the sitter.  Lots of information can be gleaned in this manner and it is popular with sitters who sometimes think that the medium is actually listening to the voice of their loved one.  

Clairaudience is not used for fortune telling.  It is an excellent gift for proving life after death.   Remember, the future is not a  mediums  responsibility: the past and the present are.

A fully developed sixth sense brings several new gifts into play.  Clairvoyance seems to be the most well known of these. This is the ability to see clearer, or to see things that those without the developed gift cannot see.  Just like in the film The Sixth Sense!

Clairvoyance occurs when the third eye is developed enough to allow you to see images, pictures and sometimes spirits. These images seem to be inside the head, rather than outside as with natural vision. A clairvoyant may say “I see a man with you.”  The man may not actually be stood bodily beside you, as he is no longer physical, but this is how it will appear to the clairvoyant when they tune in to you.

Clairvoyants see a virtual jigsaw with their special vision, and the hardest  part is putting the pieces together to give a clear message. When a spirit entity wants to get a message across to a loved one, they will show the medium lots of images, and maybe themselves too, in order to allow the medium to give accurate information.

Clairvoyance is really a partnership between spirit, sitter, and medium.  Clairvoyance, given by a medium, is not fortune telling.  The future is not a medium’s responsibility: the past and the present are.

I am fortunate to be a clairvoyant medium, with a mixture of clairaudience and clairsentience too.   I get a mixture of images and I hear voices too.  The voice part is clairaudience.  I feel and sense too. This is the clairsentience coming in to play.

For more on these subjects keep tuning in to this blog.

The words used by mediums may sometimes seem odd to those who are not into psychic speak. If you are new to watching platform mediums you may be bewildered by the words they use.  Here I have given a simple explanation of a few common terms.

A Sitter – Someone who sits with a medium to receive a psychic message

A Medium – A person used as a mediator between the sitter and the afterlife.  Or the sitter and the spirit loved ones.

A Psychic –  Someone who gives information which they glean from a sitter or object by using the sixth sense. and the sitters aura.

Clairvoyance - The gift of being able to see using the sixth sense.  To be able to see spirits and describe them.

Clairaudience -  The gift of being able to hear using the sixth sense. To hear a spirit speak.    

Clairsentience - The gift of being able to feel and smell using the sixth sense.  To sense the smells and emotions relayed by the spirits.

Table Tapping -  A form of communication which uses the sitters’ psychic energy to tap, or move a table.  Used quite a lot by the Victorians and people within the circle of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Still used by some spiritualists. I have never found it useful personally, as the messages and tappings can be pre-empted by the sitters’ thoughts.  That’s not good.  But it is a good demonstration of psychic phenomena.

Trance Medium -When a medium allows themselves to go into a higher state of consciousness in order to allow spirit communication.

Direct Voice - When a physical medium is able to uses ectoplasm to allow a spirit to talk in their earthly voice once more.

Physical Mediumship -When a medium has devoted themselves to developing ectoplasm so taht spirits can show themselves as they were when on this material earth plane.

Spirit World - Where we come from and where we go back to after this earthly life is over. It is our home for we are all spirit.

Ectoplasm - This is the material that exudes from a physical medium for the spirit entities to use.

I hope you find this useful.  If you are in any doubt about any of the terms I used, or other language heard in a church or at a sitting,  please contact me. I am always happy to help.

Is a medium always switched on?  Or, does a medium walk round all the time with spirits talking to them or showing themselves.  Do mediums see spirits all the time and is it just like looking at me and you?

Well, if a medium walked around all the time with spirit voices in their head,  picking up all the aches and pains a spirit can pass on to a medium,  they would soon be gaga!

A medium really has to learn very early on in their psychic development,  that they have to tune in and open up, and close down when they have finished their session.  It would be an impossible existence otherwise.  It would be like having crossed wires on a telephone exchange.  Mind boggling.

When a medium is tuned in they see spirits in their head usually.  In a subjective manner.  They  hear in a subjective manner too.  They cannot get mixed up between live humans and spirit people.

It is not quite like Ghost Whisperer where she is constantly interrupted by life like spirits wanting her help.  Although spirits do sometimes need help from a medium.  It is not quite so dramatic. 

Mediums deal with the ethereal world and get their messages in an ethereal way.  That’s what the words beginning with clair… mean really.  Clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience.  Seeing, hearing and sensing or feeling and knowing.

We mediums can only help the living if make sure we set time aside for readings and shut down for the rest of the day.  That way we keep spirit happy, our sitters happy and ourselves sane.

I am often asked why it is that some mediums work with their eyes closed.  You need to understand how mediums work first to understand why they close their eyes.

If a medium is clairvoyant,  they will  ’see’  what spirit is showing them.  They do not see with their physical eyes though.  They see with their psychic sight.  What they see is subjective and not objective.  Therefore, what they see is in their head.  It is a bit like having a TV screen in your forehead.

A medium can learn to work with their eyes open with practice.  It is difficult at first but can become second nature.  When a medium is a novice they will find it easier to keep their eyes shut, so that nothing distracts them from the spirit communication.  A novice is easier to distract as they are generally more  nervous.

Usually you will find that when you have a private consultation with a medium, they will tend to close their eyes more often because they are working closely with you and spirit.  It helps the concentration.

Clairaudients and clairsentients do not need to keep their eyes closed, as what they are getting is not seen.  But, some may do so in order to keep their concentration.  It is only like any normal person who is trying to concentrate on something.

Psychic gifts have names that begin with clair…  I am often asked what they all mean so I will give you a quick insight today.

Clairvoyance, the most widely known, means clear seeing, or the gift of seeing psychically.  Clairvoyants will see most of the message they pick up from the spirit communicators. Or if they work purely psychically  they will see things in their head.

Clairaudience means clear hearing.  A medium with this gift will hear most of their spirit communication.  Usually the voices are subjective, heard within the head.

Clairsentience -which seems to be the gift which is most common among mediums nowadays - is all about sensing.  A medium will feel a sense of pain, or will sense the scent a spirit loved one.   They will find they just seem to know things about their sitter.  Knowing is perhaps a good way to describe it.

Occasionally a medium will have a mixture of gifts.  I am lucky in that I have a mixture of clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience.  Which means my communications from the spirit world are a mixture too.  I see, hear and sense the things I am given to relay.  It allows me to put together a good picture, with the added bonus that I may hear the names and places being spoken. 

I may see a spirit,  so that I may describe them.  I may hear a spirit, so that I may repeat their words.  I may also feel a sense of the pains they suffered or smell their favourite scent.

Whichever gift you have it is a God given gift.  Be grateful you have it and learn to use it to the best of your ability so that you can help people who are in need of proof of survival after death.

In today’s paper, there are letters from people, to the advice column, about fortune tellers and fortune telling. If you read it you will perhaps be alarmed at the tales told by would be seekers of the future.

What alarms me is that people are so gullible that they will pay almost anything to be told their problems will go away or some other future events.  Maybe they want to know if a new partner is coming, or if they will marry or win the lottery.

No one can tell you these things!  The reason is that whatever you go out and do or say, directly after your ‘reading’, could well change any future events.  Only you live your life. No one else can change it.  You have the last say in it, not any fortune teller.

This particular reader had written in to say that a clairvoyant had told her, at great cost to the sitter, that if she stayed with her current boyfriend and had a baby with him, it would not survive.  The woman was too scared to ask if she meant the baby or the boyfriend. She fled and lived in fear.  She married the boyfriend, had a child, who is now a healthy 20 years old.

Clairvoyants, we are then told by the columnist, cynical people who are in it for the money!  Hold on here…………………….   Granted, there are a lot of charlatans but some are genuine. 

I personally ask no questions of my sitters.  I never tell them anything which would worry them.  I do not pretend I can tell the future, as I believe no one can.  What I do is to help their loved ones in the spirit world, to communicate with them, and let them know they are not alone.  I give them upliftment not worries!

If the spirits offer advice I will pass it on, but only if the spirit goes on to prove who they are, and that the loved one trusts them.

Some psychics charge the earth for a sitting.  Others are more fair.  The phone psychics seem to charge the most, and I find it remarkable that someone would want such a personal reading via a phone, and paying by the minute.  They must have money to burn.

Please remember my regular advice.  Go to someone recommended to you by a friend or colleague.  Never pay more than you can afford.    Never tell them anything until AFTER your reading is over.  Just say yes, no, or, I don’t understand.

Remember too that ‘clairvoyants’ use their psychic senses to see things that natural senses cannot.  Clairaudients hear things the normal senses cannot.  ‘Clair’ just means clear and in this instance it refers to psychic senses only.

Just because someone says they are clairvoyant, does not mean they can see spirits.  But, a clairvoyant medium can see spirits.  A clairaudient medium can hear spirits.  Please remember the difference and it will help you.

Even the spirits can only tell you about how thins stand at the time.  They are not allowed to tell you the future.  if we all knew our futures, it would impinge on our lives and the way we live them.  That would accomplish little on our pathway to enlightenment.

Take care and beware.  Always use your own common sense and intelligence and don’t be fleeced by someone telling you nothing.

Clairsentience is a gift which is often overlooked when discussing psychic subjects.

As you know there is clairvoyance, the gift of clear seeing, clairaudience, the gift of clear hearing, and clairsentience is the gift of sensing, smelling & feeling.

Clairsentience is often the first one which comes into play when developing mediumship and psychic ability.  It would seem that it is not used to its full potential though, as there is apparently a lack of these readers.

When giving a reading, smells and emotions are usually communicated from spirit, but a lot of mediums don’t seem to pick them up. They need to learn to develop this gift.

The sense of the pain when a loved one was passing over, is often relayed from spirit to help prove who they are.  They also try to make the medium feel the emotions they were going through and may still be if it was a very recent passing.

It takes skill, time, and above all patience, to learn how to get this communication over correctly.  It also has to be treated with kid gloves, as it is so easy to hurt a sitter by being clumsy with the communications.

The medium has to let their own feelings flow whilst allowing the other feeling to be sensed.  Not easy but well worth the extra effort.

Readings can be given with clairsentience alone, but used in conjunction with clairvoyance and clairaudience, it becomes much more of a soul to soul affair.

It may be worth finding out which gifts a medium has before going for a sitting.  Even so, believe it or not, some mediums don’t know which gifts they have!  There is a lot of ignorance out there. This is what my blog is for. 

To educate, both sitters and readers alike.