Message of a Medium - Insight Interview, Pt 1

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting the transcript of my interview with Carol Geiler and her INSIGHT intuitive focus group that I did back on May 25. Carol and her audience asked some really great questions about what it's like being a psychic medium and how I got started. For those of you who know me, this might answer some questions you've always wondered, but never asked. For those who haven't been exposed to this side of me, well ... I guess here's your chance :).

This first part deals with how I discovered this ability and started working with it. Next week, I will get into the questions regarding the nature of how I receive information and other things I did to further development. Enjoy!

___________________________________

- How did your gifts unfold?

When I was very young, I already had some kind of sense that the world was magical and mystical. It really came to a head when I was three-years-old when my family lived in a haunted house. Events were really traumatic. In one case, my sister had the hot water handle from the bathtub blow off on her; she was pushed down the stairs. We had a dog get pushed down the stairs and go blind. My brother and I recount many times going up the stairs and having a little gnome at the top of the steps telling us to stay out of our sister’s bedroom. I actually had something charge me one night in my bedroom, and as a result, I actually slept with the covers over my head until I was 15. I was completely afraid of the dark. I was completely afraid of ghosts and goblins. And now I’m a ghost hunter (laughter from the audience). It’s come full circle.

But because of those incidents, though, always being lodged in my mind, it was an anchor, more or less, to the reality that there is more to everyday life than what we experience. Coupled with that negative stimulation I also have memories of positive things. At that young of age (3 years) up until about 5 years old, I had past life recall; I had communication with what people would call spirit guides that I could see at that time. I can’t see them anymore like that. So, one of the benefits coming out of that negative experience was also the lodging in my memory of the good.

Also, my parents moved every two to three years, so you never could get comfortable – we were always being uprooted. And so in a way, that made me become somewhat of an introvert. I had to go inward for my own stability (or at least remain lodged in myself), and I think that might have contributed to my being aware of how my body was always feeling and what was going on inside of me. And in my teens, as every teenager goes through, you never feel like you fit in. The way I dealt with that was, I would go to bed every night listening to music. One night, I had reached some kind of catatonic state. At the time, it was cassette tape – we didn’t have CD’s back then – so the tape flipped off and I had to turn the tape over. So, in order to do that, I had to open my eyes. At that moment I saw 7 glowing beings around my bed, and I know how that makes me sound – it makes me sound like a total weirdo. Immediately, my mind shot back to my childhood experience of being charged in the old haunted house. I put the covers over my head for a week. But then I realized, “You know what, if they wanted to do something, they’ve had 5 days now to do it. I need to see what this is about.” So, after some trepidation and nervousness, I repeated the experiment. I put the headphones on, made sure I relaxed into the music, and got into that state. And then I opened my eyes and there they were again. Basically, that was the start, really, of my development. Probably for a good year or so after that, on a nightly basis, I was being schooled, groomed, whatever you want to call it, about ideas regarding the nature of reality, stuff like that.

From there, I actually did something – my whole family … got into it – which is something most people try and stay away from. We got on the Ouija board. That’s when the medium abilities started, because I was able to finish the sentences and paragraphs that were coming before they even spelled them out on the board. I even got into some trance channeling, but that was way too taboo for me.

Then of course, as you grow up, you got to go out and live that normal life. You have to get married and have the white picket fence. So, I left all that behind. (But) eventually it got to a point that it seemed whatever I was doing I was hitting a brick wall, until one day I finally threw up my arms and said “What am I suppose to be doing?” It was around that time that my mother called me up and said “You need to turn on the sci-fi channel and watch this guy John Edward.” So I turned it on … Now I had seen James Van Praagh on television before and thought “That’s really intriguing.” It didn’t really grab me …

How old were you at this point?

That was in the year 2000; I would’ve been 20, 30 years old.

But watching John Edward and seeing the impact he was making, the healing he was … giving to people ... I remembered my ability to communicate with my spirit guides, so I said “You know, I bet I might be able to do something like this, too, and maybe this is what they are telling me to do instead of hitting these brick walls.” That’s basically how it started.

Which parts of it were difficult for you to embrace?

I actually … Upon doing the first couple readings and discovering that, yes, something was happening … I guess the knowledge that it was possible (to be a psychic and a medium) was easy to embrace. What was difficult to embrace was the realization that, “OK, I know I’m going to be considered the odd man out now.”

It was the emotional part?

Yes. I mean, who wants to be seen as the odd man out, the freak, or even the fraud, or worse yet, mentally unstable. Nobody wants to be perceived as that. Even to this day, I feel like I’m leading a double life. I have my regular day job, I go to work, I get up in the morning. I don’t talk about this at work or anything like that. And then I come and do this kind of stuff ... (laughter from the audience) … where I’m staring off into space, and I know my eyes do this funky little dance, and things just start coming through …

Are you working on that integration?

Yes, I am working on that integration. I’m very cautious about it, because I am aware of the stigmatism that can come with it. Fortunately – now I’ve been doing this for about 11 years now – I haven’t really had any negative experiences. I haven’t had somebody come up and say I’m a Satan worshipper or some crazy thing like that. I guess that’s because I’m really cautious about it. I’m not out there grand-standing it or anything like that. Quite honestly, when things go good, when information is coming through, whether it’s with a client or when I’m on a ghost investigation ... With the ghost stuff, (the society) doesn’t tell the psychics anything about the environment, where the haunting is occurring and what (the haunting type phenomenon) is or the place’s history … So when I’m getting stuff and they can validate it, and when stuff is going good, the positives far outweigh any of the negative stigmatism that you can get.

What types of things did you have to overcome in order to hone your skills?

Actually there was a lot. First and foremost, and there is even some of that going on right now, is Fear (laughter from the audience). I mean, you get up and get in front of people, even if it’s just one person, and it’s natural to sit and go “Well, how am I going to look? Am I going to appear a freak or fraud?” You get self-conscious. But the fact of the matter is, after doing this for so long, when it comes time to sit down and do the reading, it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with what energy is there, and what the energy has to say to the person I am reading. At that point, you (acting in the role of the medium) are just a conduit. You are a tool, basically, to be used to facilitate a message; it has nothing to do with you. And realize, really, that you are out of the equation, except for the fact that you are doing it … Your presence is there.

The other thing I had to let go of, and I really didn’t do this until about December last year after I finally gave myself an adequate answer … was to let go of the left-brain analytical stuff. Your mind is always going “How does this work? What is the modus operandi?” I will tell you from experience, that kind of questioning ends up leading to self-doubt. And that will stunt you, because you are always trying to figure yourself out. Every successful reading you give, you end up before the very next one, saying to yourself “Well, maybe that was just a fluke. Maybe that really didn’t happen, because I don’t understand how I got the information.” So you discount it.

How did you learn to turn that off?

Actually that was very simple. I got a sheet of paper out and listed 60 just off the top my head memories of things that were way too abstract to discount. First one on my list, I just wrote the name “Ben.” This is the perfect example. I was at some friends’ house, where I was getting ready to do a small little group reading. This is before the reading got started. I was just sitting there and my friend walks across the room and the name “Ben” floats across my mind. So I asked, “Who’s Ben?” She said “Well, my dad had a best friend named Ben.” I asked “Has he passed?” She said “I don’t know.” So we just left it at that. She called me three days later and says “So I checked up on Ben. He died last week.” How do you discount that?

The second one on my list is Snoopy; the dog Snoopy. I was giving a reading … Somebody was hosting me for a private reading. The host gets up and walks by me. All of a sudden I get this image of Snoopy in my head and I say “Okay, I need to bring up Snoopy, but I think it’s for you.” And we just left it at that. Reading comes and goes. She gets a phone call, she picks up the phone and her jaw drops to the floor. I’m thinking “Okay, what’s this about?” She hangs up and says “That was my ex-husband. He used to build parts for the space shuttle. He wants his Snoopy pin back.” (It was a small pin with Snoopy wearing a cosmonaut helmet). So …

So you turned off your left-brain by counting your blessings?

Yeah. I made a list of about 60 occurrences where I got people’s names correct, where I got conditions correct, all the correct ones that just came to mind. I made this list and I read that list daily. Daily. To basically inform my consciousness that, yes, you are doing this. And I actually did come up with a good left-brain explanation about how I was getting the information.

The other thing to overcome to hone your skills … You have to go out and do it. Just sitting at home thinking about it isn’t going to do it. You actually have to go out there, bite the bullet, read strangers, the whole works. Now, you can prep for that – there are really good ways to prep for that. One of the best ways to do that is business cards. If you have a friend that is willing to do this with you, have them go around and gather up business cards of people they might know that you don’t. This is one of things I had a friend do for me for awhile. She would come in with business cards of acquaintances and business people she knew. She would just hand me this business card …

So you need an accomplice!

You need an accomplice! So … she would give me these business cards and I wouldn’t even look at the name, I would just hold the card. Whatever would come out, you know… And then validate and validate … But, you know, it’s practice.

Psychic Damage Control

My original intent for this week’s entry was to be part 1 from a transcript of my interview with Carol Geiler and her INSIGHT intuitive focus group regarding my history and work as a medium. However, on Tuesday I was scheduled to do a 1-on-1 sitting, and based on what came out of that experience, I feel it is much more important to talk about that and get to the interview transcript next time.

My client, Debra, has given me permission to discuss her situation, as it is important for people to be aware of what can sometimes happen in this field. She came to me not necessarily to hear from a deceased relative, but as things unfolded it became clear she came to me because of a reading she’d had from another psychic a few months ago in California. He not only left a bad taste in her mouth, but potentially traumatized.

To start off, when Debra sat down for the reading with this other psychic, everything he mentioned about her life was incorrect. He told her that she had had a rough life, was a dancer, etc. etc. He gave some very specific things that were totally wrong and off-base. Then he took it further … and mentioned she would die in her 70’s while asleep (I think she said 73). Now, hold onto your hat, because here’s the really bad part (if you didn’t think it was bad enough already): When she tried to protest, he stared deep into her eyes and said “I know all and I see all.” In other words, he gave her the psychic middle finger and said “my word is law.”

Naturally, this was very upsetting to Debra. It kept her from sleeping for a few nights after the event, and to this day has left her feeling unsettled. She told me that some of the stuff he told her incorrectly about her life did fit the lives a few relatives, and was concerned that maybe he did have some psychic ability, and hence, his prediction of death might be true.

As she was telling me this, all I could think was “This is the danger of egotistical psychics – or people who think they’re psychic.” Here was somebody who was only interested in bulldozing his way into someone else’s psyche and making a buck doing it, and couldn’t handle being told he was wrong. He obviously lacked any compassion for his client, breaking a cardinal rule of doing a job that is meant to be a service. In addition, if he had any real psychic ability, he obviously was a novice in knowing how to read, interpret, and work within the nature of that signal – and thus all that was wrong with his statements.

THIS IS NOT A GENUINE PSYCHIC. BUYER BEWARE.

As I state to everyone who comes to my group readings, no psychic is ever 100% accurate, and if you find somebody who claims they are – run, they’re completely full of sh --! Here’s the perfect example of one … and it really did a doozy on my client.

That this guy was unable to take the criticism that he was wrong shows just how inauthentic he is as a professional intuitive. Anybody who has been doing this seriously will tell you, the psychic signal is a mystery. There are times when readings go great – the flow of energy is spectacular, meanings are well received and transmitted. Other times, it’s not so good; the energy doesn’t have a lot of substance and it’s like pulling teeth – and it’s the job of the psychic to fulfill the objective of the sitter to the best of his/her ability and tell them if it’s not going good. This is why I start a private sitting with just 5 minutes of me doing my thing and getting “yes” or “no” answers from the client, so we can both be confident that the energy is in place and the psychic signal is strong before continuing. (Incidentally, this reading went just that way – the energy wasn’t “in my face” enough, so the stuff I did get just wasn’t hitting hard enough, so I called the reading to a close and didn’t charge her for seeing me. It was at this point she revealed the incident with the bad psychic).

Although his impressions about Debra’s life were completely off-base, his prediction of her death still had an impact. It’s important for people to know that this type of information – somebody’s death – is not going to come from a psychic that has any integrity and worth. First off, there are so many different life paths that Debra could take between now and 73 years old, there would be no way he could see with any clarity or definitiveness such an event. Secondly, no psychic should ever leave a sitter feeling worse-off when she leaves than when she sat down. Now, I ask you: How you would feel if a psychic told you how you were going to die? Sorry, but that just blows all ethics out the water.

Debra was also concerned because, as I had mentioned, some things he said did fit other members of her family. She wondered if maybe he still had some worth as a psychic, and therefore should she take any credence with anything else he said?

“Absolutely not,” was my response. Since he was unable to see that his impressions did not apply to her (a “miss rate” of 90+%) nor acknowledge that fact when she tried to protest, just went to show how inexperienced and ignorant he was as a professional. Yes, he might have picked up on things about her relatives, but that he was unable to understand and piece together via the nature of the signal, and his unwillingness to accept his fault, or recognize that he may potentially be missing the “real info” within the psychic information, revealed his lack of credentials and abilities. That being the case, his prediction of her death had no basis of worth.

Now, I fully admit I am not 100% accurate and would be more than willing to entertain a mis-appropriation of an impression, but that I would miss all my impressions at 90% (okay, here’s my ego in this), is usually not the case. The energy, if it’s there, WILL tell you, and if it’s not, then as a professional and honest psychic, you cannot say how accurate you are. This is exactly opposite of what this guy did. And it kept Debra from sleeping at night.

Remember, any professional authentic psychic should follow the three rules I tell everyone who comes to see me:

1. Don’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. It’s the psychic’s job to tell you – “Yes” or “No” are the only answers the psychic should need, simply to validate whether or not he or she is truly connecting and working within the psychic signal. There should be no fishing for information, and by all means – the client should not feed the psychic anything.

2. If something doesn’t fit, don’t try and make it fit. It’s your life. And you know yourself better than any psychic ever could. Your gut will tell you whether or not if any of the impressions or predictions could ring true. Honestly, it doesn’t help the psychic to grow and develop if people immediately latch onto his words, when his impressions may be completely invalid. Things need to unfold naturally, for if the psychic’s prediction is true, it’s based on that reality and not one they’ve implanted. The second part of this, obviously, is not making the prediction fit if it really doesn’t fit to begin with. You’ll end up wasting a lot of your precious time and gain a major headache to boot! Again, let things unfold naturally. Predictions are based on the energy of the client at the time of the reading, and if that energy doesn’t change and if the prediction is accurate, things will unfold precisely as they would have had the client never seen the psychic in the first place.

3. The psychic can always be wrong. Sorry, but true. We simply don’t know enough about how the psychic signal works, plus we’re dealing with (I suspect) quantum processes that can easily be jumbled by the simple changing of observation, either from the psychic or the client. I believe the standard rule of thumb is a genuine psychic will have a “hit rate” of 85% or better, meaning that at least 15% of the time, he or she could be off. The nature of psychic impression is quite spontaneous and not something one can label as “predictable,” in terms of quantity and quality of content – quite ironic, isn’t it? Still, when one considers that professional basketball players and baseball sluggers actually miss more hits than the one’s they are famous for … It’s still a remarkable percentage validating that something special is occurring.

However, in Debra’s case, she unfortunately didn’t know these rules – and what’s worse, neither did her “psychic.”

Oh, and Rule 4 – which actually happened when Debra left my place – she felt much better than when she came in. A reading, if done well, will empower you, not throw you down in the dumps.

Remember these rules. Next time before you sit down for a reading with any psychic, ask them – Can they ever be wrong? It’s a valid question. If someone claims to “know all and see all,” stand up and walk away. You’ll sleep better for it..