I’ve explored mediumship in fiction (my novel, I’m A Believer, published by Transworld/Black Swan) and also in real life, developing my abilities to communicate with the spirit world for the last 20 years. I’m often asked about communicating with people who’ve passed on the other side of life. Who to see – how it’s done – how much it costs – how it all works!
The Best Mediums Don’t Advertise
One thing I’ve learned from meeting mediums is – they don’t tend to advertise. They are recommended by word of mouth.
In this feature as part of #TransformationTuesdays on Twitter – I’ll look at what makes a great medium, what it’s all about – and how you can develop your own mediumship.
I sometimes bring my mediumship into astrology, and this website, so if you ask me a question and I suddenly get a message for you from the family, or friends, or partners – I will pass it on. You’ve probably seen that in Comments.
The other day I was replying to a reader whose father had passed. She had a question about the home she was set to inherit. I was shown a chalk white horse carved into a green hill. I relayed this. She confirmed it was near another family member. That’s a classic piece of mediumship.
Survival Evidence and Margaret Dent
The famous Australian medium Margaret Dent, whose book Love Never Dies, I constantly recommend, was a colleague of mine on The Spook Show at the Sydney radio station 2SM. She was never my teacher, but she taught me a lot. One of her key phrases was ‘survival evidence’. This is something specific, detailed, word-perfect, or ‘image perfect’ that makes strong and immediate sense to you, and to the spirit person communicating. To the medium it likely makes no sense at all.
Yet, working as a medium myself (in my thirties, I read for quite a lot of people) I came to appreciate survival evidence more than anything else. I have seen sitters become quite emotional when it’s passed on. It might be a song. A nickname. Often it is drawn from childhood. Margaret Dent would often produce such evidence 5-10 minutes into a reading.
How Is Contact Made With Spirit?
So how is contact made with the spirit world?
Well – the way it’s done, is just as every good hippie will tell you. We have a colour field around us, called an aura. It is bright, fuzzy and electric – to my eyes, anyway. This is the vast energy field around a medium, which spirit people access. We talk about the Cloud, when we’re mentioning the worldwide web. This is rather like that. It’s a cloud for connection.
We have colour bands, or fields, around each part of our body. This flower below shows some of them. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the chakras. They are usually shown as blocks of primary colour. Flat, rather ordinary squares or circles of colour. In fact, they are more like shimmering lights – the kind you see around a traffic light on a wet night in New York City!
So, this flower is pretty close (below). In the human aura, green and yellow, in a kind of hazy field of bright light, go around the middle of your torso. Red, further down – that is the base or sacral chakra.
When mediums communicate with spirit people, the whole aura opens up and becomes bigger, and communication is made through the crown (white) chakra at the top of the head, the third eye (purple) chakra between the eyes and the throat (blue) chakra. It’s possible to see this in a mirror. In general, mediums can see a white light around people who are being overshadowed by spirit. What’s overshadowing? It’s like one sheet of film on an overhead projector, laid on top of another. It means a spirit guide, or spirit person, is moving into the aura of someone who is physically present, and ‘overshadowing’.
You can train as a medium yourself, from experts like Gordon Smith, who I’ve been fortunate enough to see three times. In a moment I’ll show you where to find one of his best-loved (free) YouTube clips. His book, Intuitive Studies – A Complete Course in Mediumship, is excellent reading. Even if you only want to visit a medium, understanding how it all works, from behind the scenes, can be very helpful. Perhaps you just want to make contact yourself, with someone you’ve lost.
Well, why shouldn’t you? Yet, you need rules and a good teacher. Gordon Smith is hugely experienced.
While you wait to see a good medium, you can also read some great books about the spirit world, how it all works, where your people are, and what the rules are. I sometimes hear from people who are excited about the contact they believe they have made with someone who has passed away. The excitement is understandable but be cautious, please. The spirit world can be full of confusing and confused people. You wouldn’t go scuba-diving without preparation. It’s the same with mediumship.
The spirit world is like the sea. You don’t just plunge in. It is a special place in time and space and it’s good to know what you’re dealing with, before you go there. 
One of the best personal introductions to life after so-called death, is If The Spirit Moves You, by the amazing Justine Picardie. Best-known for her biography of Chanel, with illustrations by Karl Lagerfeld, my friend Justine also edited Harper’s Bazaar in Britain for many years. She lost her sister Ruth to cancer but the connection continued, in Ruth’s ‘life after life’ and Justine’s account of it has recently been reissued as a Picador classic. It’s a very good place to start if you are new to the idea of mediums. Justine’s open mind and commitment to the truth has helped so many people find what they are looking for, on the other side of life. This is another book I recommend to people who are starting out on the path of mediumship, either as a potential client (sitter) or perhaps because they have the ability and want to train.
Is There Life After Death? is a free, televised debate with experts from the University of Virginia and John Cleese, who as part of the Monty Python team has lost his friends and colleagues, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. This is an extremely thoughtful and occasionally very funny, introduction to the questions so many people ask about survival. Watch here.
Gordon Smith is one of the most famous mediums in the world and is the barber from Scotland who single-handedly changed the way millions of people thought about life after physical death. If you have never seen the program about his life, The Psychic Barber, this is an eye-opening explanation of how the spirit world looks, from a natural medium’s point of view. In a moment I’ll take you further into this fascinating (but strange) ‘time and space’ through the work of David Fontana, in Life Beyond Death (Watkins) but first let’s look at what Gordon Smith and professional medium/teachers can offer you.
All mediums work with one or more spirit guides to help them control the communication and point them in the right direction. I mentioned that the spirit world is a lot like the ocean – there can be jellyfish, stingrays and sharks out there. The reality of this other reality, is that it requires life guards, or life savers, and lighthouse keepers. It also needs swimming teachers. This is the spirit guide, who is usually from another culture and point in history. This is why you so often hear about a medium working with a Tibetan or Native American. Often, a Chinese guide who understands Confucius. These guides volunteer their services to be there with a medium when he or she is using telepathy with a spirit person. It’s rather like having a telephone switchboard operator, or a translator. Today, I would liken it to an organisation like Zoom, which facilitates video conversations between groups of people online. Spirit guides can overshadow (or project their likeness, in light) over the face and body of a medium. This happens in a trance state and is called transfiguration. I have seen it many times. This is another unusual but important part of mediumship. Mediums can also allow spirit people to project their likeness on themselves, rather like a slide projector beaming a slide onto a blank wall. Once seen, never forgotten. Yet, this is only part of what mediums do.
You don’t have to be a professional medium to meet your guide, or guides, plural. Gordon Smith shows you how on YouTube.
Beyond the personal, very close (often quite emotional) one-on-one communication that a medium can bring about, between yourself and the person who has passed – there is channelling.
This is fascinating to watch and I have seen it several times at The College of Psychic Studies in Kensington. A medium, in a light to heavy trance, gives information and knowledge, from a spirit world teacher. The topics can be deep and complicated. The answers are often wise and can be life-changing, as the medium is ‘bringing through’ insights from one or more spirit people who have lived through several lifetimes – or perhaps chosen to have just one – but remained on that side of life, gaining vast perspective.
Jane Roberts is the most famous channel in history and her sessions with Seth have resulted in a number of classic books. In the mid-1970s a camera was turned on her work, and we are lucky to have evidence of how she and Seth worked together.
Watching Jane Roberts channelling Seth in 1974 is a matter of going to YouTube.
Proof, Evidence and the AfterlifeThe Afterlife Experiments on HBO with Dr. Gary E. Schwartz and medium Suzane Northrop (whom he tested, with astounding results) is one way to challenge any scepticism or disbelief you may have that it is possible to communicate with people in spirit. The documentary is here.
Professor David Fontana, from Liverpool John Moores University, published his guide to life after death in 2009. Recommended by Professor Archie Roy (Glasgow University – and a mentor of Gordon Smith) it covers some of the issues that I know people want to ask and never feel comfortable about doing so, publicly!
Sudden death and your state of mind is a common concern. So are earthbound spirits. Reincarnation. The Summerland, or plane of colour. The other ‘bandwidth’ as I like to think of it, which can have no form at all – or be an illusion. If you’ve ever lived or worked somewhere with a hungry ghost, as the Tibetan Buddhists call them, you’ll want to know what Professor Fontana has to say about them.
“Hungry ghosts, who are said to have an existence tormented by an inability to enjoy the sensual pleasures that they see around them in the physical world, are said to bring their fate upon themselves by living greedy, selfish and sensual lives while on earth. They are described as experiencing a form of hellish existence…by seeing things that they desperately desire yet proving unable to partake of them, rather like being thirsty and starving at a fabulous feast yet unable to swallow a morsel of food or a sip of drink.”
Now, here’s a name which often only mediums know. Linda Williamson was never a television star and yet her wisdom has helped so many professionals in their career. In fact, when she read for one famous American medium, bringing him information from his mother, she changed the way he thought about the business.
Linda Williamson wrote Finding the Spirit Within, but also a crucial handbook, Ghosts and Earthbound Spirits, which brings me to the question of haunting. This is the side of mediumship that gets teenage boys over-excited, and quite a few adults who lack experience. I’m sure you’ve seen re-runs of television shows where haunted houses, apartments, offices and factory buildings, pubs and restaurants are explored at night, by mediums and television crews.
This is, to me, the equivalent of the old tours of Bedlam in London, when people suffering with severe mental illness were gawped at by the public through the bars. For a time, these kinds of shows were really popular on television, but for me, they were about the exploitation of spirit people in distress. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has many, many such souls because it has an extremely long history and much of that has involved terrible poverty. It has not always been possible for people who passed in extreme crisis to do so, peacefully. Thus, we end up with the ‘haunted pub’ and so on.
The lower astral or ‘close to the earth’ plane is often where troubled spirit people, who may have passed with heroin, alcohol or just serious mental health issues – end up. Sometimes they do not know they are physically dead.
I really don’t want to spend any more time on this side of the afterlife than is necessary. Yet, if you have issues with what you believe are spirit people who have not passed over, Linda William’s books are full of wisdom and comfort.
Published by Professor Gary E. Schwartz Ph.D. who is an alumni of the University of Arizona, Harvard and Yale, this 2002 classic transformed the views of sceptics in academia in particular. Professor Schwartz tested the very best mediums he could find, for his book (published by Atria) and the HBO television series. “The most visible members of our Dream Team of mediums have waiting lists that extend beyond a year and they sometimes receive more than $1000 for a single one-hour reading,” he wrote, in his book.
The most famous of these, nearly 20 years ago, was John Edward. His relaying of specific evidence (what my old friend, the medium Margaret Dent used to call ‘survival evidence’) amazed people who read about it – and watched it. For example, he mentioned a song called ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ associated with Shirley Temple, to one sitter. The sitter burst into tears and explained that as a child when she sang Shirley Temple songs, her grandmother would tell her that she looked just like her.
John Edward would go on to provide Professor Schwartz with survival evidence, too, that would alter his view of his research. Edward is not a channel for general knowledge and wisdom from spirit (that comes from very different mediums) but his gift for passing on accurate, specific, survival evidence continues to transform lives.
As spirit people occupy a different time and space to us, it is interesting to hear guides talk about ‘the future’. (Especially if you are reading this on an astrology website.
“The future is not a given. This is a world of free will. If you want to look at probable futures for people, ask your guide if it is permissible to speak of these probable futures. Before you do so, get an inner sense of rightness. It is important to check yourself out on this issue. If it does not feel right, if it feels like a struggle to get advice, or if you receive nothing, do not speak of a particular probable future.” (Orin and DaBen, guides, in Opening to Channel by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer (H. J. Kramer, 1987).
This is an interesting comment for an astrologer and/or psychic. My own attitude, about giving public warnings about a virus (which you have seen twice on this website, a year before the crisis in Wuhan began to unfold) is that astrologers have a duty to sound the alarm. Not every astrologer is a psychic, or a medium, but those who are do have a responsibility to be good ‘weather’ forecasters. I prefer my weather reports to give me news about rain, or snow, or high temperatures so I can plan ahead.
My predictions about a virus, first timed for 10th January 2020 and again, timed for March 9th 2020, were there to make anyone with an open mind take COVID-19 seriously, even when it was still being called ‘the Corona Virus.’
The first fatality occurred in China on 10th January 202o and WHO declared a pandemic on March 11th, just two days after that date. They were widely publicised on Twitter and they remain on this website, with all the immediate comments that followed. Spirit guides often work with astrology because it is an effective way of timing ‘weather’ events – like a virus warning.
The Nature of the Psyche – Jane Roberts and SethChapter Ten in Jane Roberts’ channelled book (from her guide Seth), The Nature of the Psyche, is really interesting as it looks into ‘Games That Anybody Can Play. Dreams and the Formation of Events.’
As we are all spending more time inside, sleeping, resting, napping and dreaming in 2020, what can Seth tell us, all the way from 1977, through the channelling of Jane Roberts?
This was Session 793 between them, taking place on February 14th 1977 at 9.28pm.
‘Good evening.’
‘Good evening, Seth.’
‘Dictation. The brain is primarily an event-forming psycho-mechanism through which consciousness operates. Its propensity for event-forming is obvious even in young children. By obvious, I mean active, when fantasies occur involving activities far beyond the physical abilities as they are thus far developed.
‘Children’s dreams are more intense than those of adults because the brain is practicing its event-forming activities. These must be developed before certain physical faculties can be activated. Infants play in their dreams, performing physical actions beyond their present physical capacities.’
One thing is certain about mediumship and channelling. It is not for everyone. It is also, however, the only thing (I believe) that gives us a complete view of the world. It’s rather like looking at the planet and not seeing the oceans. If you edit them out, or don’t believe in them at all, you don’t really see the whole thing. This ‘whole thing’ is a complicated, mysterious and fascinating whole system, with those who have passed to spirit, frequently playing a bigger part in proceedings than any sceptic ever guessed. An open mind is all you need, but I hope the videos and books above, help. Always navigate with trusted, tried and tested professionals to help you explore.
Every week, as part of #TransformationTuesday, Alicia Fulton recommends a reading list. Alicia spent many years working in the media, including time at ELLE magazine, where we became long-time friends. Every week at this website, Alicia curates recommended reading about all kinds of subjects, from labyrinths and tea-leaf reading, to subjects like this one – mediumship.
In 2020, shopping for books has transformed. It’s not always possible to be physically out and about, at a shop – and not every online supplier can deliver as quickly as we’d like. If you are in Australia and are interested in any of the titles above, then while you are shopping around, have a look at the options on Booktopia, an affiliate partner of this website with author interviews, discounts and more. We hope this is useful for you.
Learning from Scotland’s hairdresser-turned-medium Gordon Smith, a wonderful teacher and writer.
If The Spirit Moves You by Justine Picardie
A modern classic. How Chanel’s biographer and Harper’s Bazaar editor, Justine Picardie, explored life – after life.
Professor David Fontana’s thoroughly researched study of the afterlife.
The HBO series was responsible for converting generations of sceptics and made John Edward famous.
Opening To Channel How To Connect With Your Guide
This is a classic guide to channelling.
If you are interested in the broader picture of our lives and times, from Seth and Jane Roberts, this is channelled wisdom.
If you have a stellium in Aquarius (more than three factors in that zodiac sign) then your Eleventh House of friendships and groups is unusually packed. What happens to those friendships when Saturn, Jupiter and then Pluto all pass through Aquarius? Have friends been lost, or has the friendship changed? That’s typical of this long cycle.
The NHS was founded on 5th July 1948 in London with an astrological chart that shows a complete replacement in 2022 and 2023. The horoscope for the National Health Service reveals a perfect storm that will affect nurses, doctors and patients.
Astrology forecasts made before an historic chain of eclipses chimed with predictions of drama for the Royal Family, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump – and a strange twist of fate involving Lolita. Published so long ago that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were still unknown to the public, they now suggest July-August 2021 is a time of reckoning. Meghan, Harry, Kate and William have also been drawn into the astrological timeline. How do the Leo eclipses pan out in 2021 and 2022?
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10 Responses
Hi Jessica – thank you for providing so much information – my reading list just got a whole lot longer! 🙂
Channelling, mediumship and psychic readings have always been fascinating to me. I first went to a psychic at 17 after moving out of home, and occasionally wagged school and went to a place called The Boston Tea House in Brisbane for readings. I saw John Edward many years ago and it was certainly an experience in a big audience. I have seen a psychic a few times in recent years (she does not advertise) and she has been very accurate.
You told me some time back that I have a Native American Spirit Guide – and since then I have often thought about how to strengthen that bond and be more open to such guidance. This post has given me a lot to start with.
And I love the part about ‘Hungry Ghosts’ – reminds me of the Myth of Tantalus!
Stay safe – and Thank You!
Blessings xxx
DinP
Your Native American guide is worth getting to know better. Have a look at the books and YouTube videos of Gordon Smith, who is a great teacher. He is low-key, practical, extremely experienced and a precise, remarkable medium. I also like the work of Linda Williamson, whom I completely forgot to mention in this article. She has read for John Edward. She is ‘the medium’s medium’ and her books are wonderful. So thank you. That is now going into this story too. Enjoy the journey, Din P.
Hi Jessica, I hope you are keeping safe and well. An absolutely fascinating topic and post, thank you so very much. It’s wonderful strange and mysterious world we live in. Death doesn’t frighten me and I do believe we go on somewhere in some form after our physical body dies, although who know’s how it all works. I’ve had Tarot readings throughout my life and found them to be fairly accurate, which lead me on to occasionally use Tarot cards for myself. However, on the occasions that I’ve sort the advice from a Medium they have mostly given me evidence from past family members, which sometimes is somewhat inaccurate and vague, when actually at that stage in my life I’ve been seeking guidance instead. I don’t know how it all comes together, but I do believe in fate and strongly feel that certain situations are out of your control and not within the power of free will. Just out of interest, what are your thoughts on how astrology will play out if and when humans eventually colonise and have babies on other planets like Mars? If we eventually do journey out of our solar system will the planets continue to have influence on human existing outside of the solar system too? Thanks again Jessica and very best wishes.
Thank you. If you are seeking broad guidance, then ask the medium to consult your spirit guides, not so much the family. In the spirit world, as in this life, the family can be incredibly helpful with practical advice, but if you want something that might come from an author, or professor, or lecturer, or expert – you would quite naturally ask the medium to bring in different kinds of guide. As for life on Mars, it’s a fantastic television series (Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes both, actually) but it will not happen this century. There is no colonisation. The new green governments around the world will be focussed on rescuing this planet, first.
Thank you so much Jessica for this very informative post! It couldn’t be more timely for me. You recently answered a question for me in the forums mentioning my psychic and mediumship gifts and the work I’ll be doing which was so specific you blew me away! This is all so new to me but using your website and astrology just further validates this new path I’m on. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and gifts with the world. I hope that one day I can do the same for others.
Thank you. That’s a really wonderful thing to read on a Thursday morning with a cup of tea, as I set about answering questions. Good luck on the path.
Hi Jessica, My book list has just grown massively. The older I get the more I appreciate the unknowns in life as we understand it. And certainly under the shock of covid, the enforced change to the way we do things within the pandemic is on the whole leading to better things emotionally as we have been forced to take stock and adjust, my own family never being so united, despite shock ripples to finances. And when strange things happen around us, whether covid or bumps in the night in the household, I marvel at our mysterious world. On to buying some books!
Thank you so much. And books are just waiting for us, now we have more time – and they often have a deeper message, or richer message – when we really need the advice. I am finding that with Seth. Thank you!
Jessica,
Thank you for this post. I am currently doing a short course on ‘meeting my guides,’ so this is very timely. I recently came across Gordon Smith after you recommended his Healing Meditation to someone in the comments section. Following that post, I started to listen to his ‘meet your guides meditation’ and even sent it to my mom. Thank you.
Regarding the virus prediction, I was convinced that you had predicted it sometime last year. I remember reading the word ‘virus’ in one of your blog posts and thinking that the word sounded ‘too out there.’
Anyway, Thanks again
Thank you. I am glad you are discovering the work of Gordon Smith, who is an excellent, down-to-earth medium who has the gift of exact phrasing. The BBC ran a test on him where he named a cottage that was important to a sitter. Quite incredible. Under test conditions! Thanks for passing this meditation of his onto your mom and I hope it helps her too. Yes, I predicted a virus twice in 2019. It was date-stamped and the word ‘virus’ was specifically used for January 10th, 2020 (which was the first sad fatality from COVID-19 in China) and again on March 9th, 2020 – which was two days before WHO declared a pandemic. The New York Times was wrong when it said astrology did not predict the virus. It certainly did. Andre Barbault predicted it many years ago, also in writing – for 2020.
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