Confessions of a Psychic Medium

When I advertise my products and services, I rarely mention the fact that I am a psychic medium. It’s not that I lack the self-confidence to promote myself as such or believe that I’m not a legitimate medium, but I avoid marketing my gift because it typically presents itself when I least expect it. Connecting with the dead doesn’t work like on-demand television viewing. I can’t command it or control it; therefore, I could never in good conscience offer it as a service for money. I admit that I’m somewhat skeptical of those to profess to have the ability to conjure communication with spirits at will. I can, however, share my experiences with others and have considered putting together another writing project based on some of those experiences.
 
First of all, you should know that it’s a very big thing for me to say, “I am a psychic medium.” Throughout my life, I’ve avoided fueling the opinions of others that I was overly imaginative and fanciful, hysterical even. My family didn’t understand my gift. How could they comprehend the babblings of a scared kid? I didn’t understand what was happening myself, let alone have the ability to aptly explain to anyone else what I was experiencing.

When I was young, I saw things, heard things, and felt things that I couldn’t explain. Somehow I was able to sense things that remained cloaked to others. I could smell strong scents that seemed to have no point of origin or that would move from one part of a room to another as if embodying an invisible solid physical form. I’ve seen objects hurled across a room with no apparent source of projection. These things didn’t really happen – or did they?

How does one explain a forceful tug at the blanket from the end of the bed when no one else is there? Or the hand that firmly grasped my shoulder so that each finger could be felt digging into my skin as it momentarily kept me from getting up from my seat? Or the voices that called my name or whispered unintelligible words in my ears, the scratching noises that came from within the walls, or the footsteps upstairs in the rooms above me when I was alone in the house. What about the people who appeared to me? Some looked as real as my own reflection in a mirror while others were transparent and clearly ghostly apparitions. Who were they and what did they want?

As an adult, such supernatural events came to a virtual halt. There were a few exceptions, like watching the dial on my car radio travel from left to right and back again under its own power, without ever touching the knob. Fortunately, this only happened whenever I drove past Concordia Cemetery in El Paso, TX. I quickly learned not to listen to the radio on that stretch of freeway. It wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest that my gift was abruptly reawakened in a most unsettling manner.

One evening, while preparing for what I thought was going to be a restful night’s sleep, I walked over to the nightstand next to my bed and reached out to turn off the lamp. Before my hand came close to the lamp, however, an extremely disconcerting energy whooshed up behind me, entered my body at my shoulders and passed through me with an electrifying burst before exiting through my feet and disappearing through the floor. I say this was an entity because I sensed its dark persona. This was not just static electricity caused by coming in contact with an appliance; I hadn’t touched the lamp yet. Nor was it static build up from shuffling my feet along the carpet. Yes, it was electrifying – but it also had a sentient presence. From that moment, I could once again sense things that my conscious mind had been ignoring for years.

It’s still unclear whether this energy was malicious or merely wanted to get my attention; I prefer to believe the latter. Since that day, I’ve been visited by people who wanted their stories told, had a specific request, or simply wanted to be acknowledged. For example, when I revealed what a woman’s voice said following her laughter over some advice I gave during a Celtic Crystal Reading, my client knew immediately who had said it. Her mother, who had passed recently, had always said the very same thing. Now, as a psychic, did I just tap into my client’s thoughts as she imagined how her mother might have reacted to her question, or was her mother’s spirit really there to give me this information first hand? The point is that I heard it; the message was real.

Another event seemed to affirm that I did indeed have a gift. My friends and I were picnicking in a Seattle cemetery one evening with the intention of gathering some headstone rubbings afterward (bizarre, I know, but true). As we walked past a large tree just after the entrance, a chill overcame me and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The air was thick and I felt like I was being pushed to hurry along past this tree. During our entire meal, I kept hearing a particular name. It was as though the person to whom this name belonged was taunting me and purposely trying to make me feel uncomfortable. When I could finally stand it no longer, I told my friends about it and we all started searching for a headstone inscribed with that name. One of my friends found it – right next to the large tree where I first became aware of this mischievous spirit. The side of the headstone that contained the name faced away from the path by the tree, so there was no way for me to have subconsciously seen it.

The settings were appropriate for encounters with spirits at the cemetery and during the reading, but sometimes spirits show up in places where it’s least expected, like in a conference room during a manager’s meeting in corporate America. My job was to take notes and record the meeting minutes. My mind was focused on that task when I looked up toward one of the managers who started speaking and saw an elderly woman standing behind him. This startled me. My first thought was, “Where did she come from?” I hadn’t heard the door open or close. Then I wondered who she was. My shock hadn’t made her vanish; she was still standing there plain as day. It was as if she had come with that one particular manager or was somehow attached to him.

Although this elderly woman didn’t speak, she “told” me that she wanted her brooch back. It was a gift from her husband and she was supposed to be buried with it. Instead, one of her relatives had callously taken it for herself. The old woman was rather insistent about having me do something about her situation, but I didn’t know what I could do that wouldn’t immediately make my colleagues categorize me as a “freak.” I never told the manager what I saw or that I suspected she might be his dearly departed aunt or even that I thought it was his wife who might have disrespected this dying woman’s wishes to be buried with a treasured token of affection from her beloved.

Having acknowledged the fact that I am a psychic medium might be my own way of finally figuring out that I’m supposed to do something with this ability. Compared to the first thirteen years I spent in Washington state, contact from the other side has been relatively sparse over the last few years. Could it be that I secretly miss having so many chance encounters with those who have crossed over? Or do I really prefer the silence? No. This stillness makes me feel as though part of me is sleeping. At any rate, I am what I am and there’s no denying it. I see dead people – I also hear them and feel their presence. They visit me in my dreams and during the day. They speak to me, so I will speak for them.