Can Anyone Learn to be a Medium?

If it's true we use only ten percent of our brain, what is the other 90 percent used for? I've come to realize that there is a portion of our brain that everyone can use to communicate with spirits on the other side. How do I know this? I actually was able to give a very basic reading to three different people, two of whom I didn't know, at a recent workshop with world renowned Scottish Medium Bill Coller.

Bill Coller lives in Switzerland and comes to the United States at least twice a year. He gives his mediumship workshops all over the world, and he's probably one of the best technical mediums there is. For the past three years I've attended his four hour workshops. Every single time, I leave the workshop completely and utterly amazed.

I don't consider myself a medium, and I don't have any talents or gifts in this area. I started taking the workshops to further my knowledge on mediumship for when I lecture, write and do my radio shows. Twenty to thirty people, mostly mediums starting out, attend these workshops, and then there was me. The first year I felt a bit out of place, working with strangers and trying to connect with their dead grandparents. I knew there would be absolutely no way I could do such a thing. We were asked to get five points of evidence to prove to the person we were reading for. I had a difficult time, to say the least, but then Bill came over and we took it step by step. Before long, I brought in the woman's grandmother, and she knew without a doubt that it was her. We both sat there shocked. She too, was able to read for me, and she was not a medium either. She brought it my father. It was truly incredible.

So in the beginning of March, I attended my third workshop and felt at little more at ease. It was called "Understanding Your Clairaudience, Clairvoyance and Clairsentience." I know a thing or two about these "tools" as Bill calls them, because I've studied them and I've written about them in my blogs and books. I work with paranormal investigator Joe Giaquinto who is a clairaudient medium (able to hear spirits), and I started developing some clairsentience (knowing/feeling the presence of spirits) while writing the Ghosts of Long Island books. Clairvoyance is the ability to "see spirits."

Over the course of four hours, Bill explained all three "clairs" in detail, breaking it down so we would understand how each means of communication actually works. For the hands-on portion of the workshop, we had to work with a partner and only work on one form of communication. My first partner happened to be a very seasoned medium who Joe and I have had on our blogtalk radio show. I jokingly told her that she obviously had an advantage over me, a non-medium. She laughed and said she believed I could do it. Don't say, "I can't," she said. We'd take it one step at a time.

For this exercise we had to use clairsentience only, so I had to "feel" or "know" who was coming through. We sat holding hands to keep the energy flowing. My eyes were closed and all I could see and feel in my head was darkness...nothingness. Sharon told me to keep paying close attention. Within a few minutes I started "sensing" the presence of her grandmother. Was this for real though? Couldn't I be just guessing or imagining it? I certainly had my doubts. I started sensing other things before long, her grandmother's house in the country, a winding pathway, a swing. I told her about the relationship she had with her grandmother, and how she had a peaceful death from old age. The things I was able to describe to Sharon were accurate, and she understood it to be her grandmother. She wasn't surprised, because this particular grandmother she was very close to. She often comes to Sharon in spirit and helps her on her journey.

The next exercise was dealing with clairvoyance. I worked with gentleman I didn't know. Now I had to try to "see" him in my head, in spirit. It started out the same way, holding hands and trying to get the energy flowing. Just like before, all I saw was blackness. I waited. All of a sudden I saw an image of a man, with black hair and a flannel shirt. He was in his forties or fifties and he was kicking up his heels and dancing. I told the man I was reading for what I was seeing, and then to my surprise I blurted out, "It's your uncle." The man said that was correct. I found out he was kicking up his heels because he always wore cowboy boots. Because I saw him dancing, I kept telling my partner he must have liked to dance. He was unsure when I mentioned it. At that point, Bill Coller happened to come over, and he was able to see the uncle as well. He also saw him dancing. He said it was great that I picked up on that, but I was misinterpreting what he was doing. Bill then asked my partner, "Was your uncle unable to walk the last year of his life?" My partner said that was correct. Bill then told us he was dancing and kicking up his heals, because he wanted his nephew to know that he was fine now. He could walk and dance again, and he no longer had pain. It all made sense now, and I was in awe.

For the last exercise, I worked with Joe Giaquinto, who I know well of course, but I gave it a shot. We were to work clairaudiently now. Within a few minutes I picked up his grandmother on his mother's side, and even though I was hearing my own voice in my head (which is how Bill said we would hear the spirits) I knew it was Joe's grandmother, and she gave me a very specific message for him. It was unbelievable.

I don't consider myself a medium, but through guidance and training, I was able to give a very basic reading to three different people. I was tapping into an unused part of my brain. For me, the workshop was more of a learning experience. I don't plan on reading for people as a living, but it's nice to know that if I pay attention, communication is possible.

Most mediums are born with the gift and then develop it later in life, but each of us has the capacity to pick up on the spirits every now and then. Even the best of mediums need proper training in how to control their mediumship, and how to validate the information they are receiving through the five points of evidence.

If you'd like to see a short video of Bill Coller's workshop, here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPhWuTjzPuM. I'm interviewed by reporter Chris Collora, and you can also see me working with my three partners.

Do you think you are capable of communicating with spirits? It's never too late to try.

Clairvoyance, Clairaudience and Clairsentience

Last month I wrote about mediumship. This month I would like to go over some of the senses a medium or psychic may have. These may include clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience.

I had a wonderful opportunity recently to attend a workshop given by Scottish Medium Bill Coller, who gave a presentation entitled "Learn to Improve Your Connection with the World of Spirit". If you are a medium already, or if you are someone just trying to form better communication with the spirit world, Bill Coller's lecture is one I would definitely recommend. Having over thirty years experience as a medium, Mr. Coller travels all over the world and works with translators in order to help others get messages from the other side. During the presentation I attended, he gave the audience an exercise to do with a partner for fifteen minutes. We were told to give the person we were sitting next to a "reading". There were only a handful of non-mediums in the room, myself included, so I knew this would be a challenge for us. The woman next to me claimed she had no psychic abilities of any kind. We sat there staring at one another wondering where to begin. We tried to concentrate and as we did, we were both getting a "sense" of a spirit coming through on the other side, but we doubted ourselves, wondering instead if we were taking lucky guesses.

Mr. Coller had asked everyone in the room to bring through one family member and find out five details or points. The details included, male or female, relationship to the person you were reading, from what side of the family was this person, what type of personality did the person have, what kind of relationship did the person being read have with this person in spirit, and/or a possible description of the person in spirit to name a few. I had picked up on my partner's grandmother and she had picked up on my father. But how could we be sure? We called Bill over to help us. He said to go with it and to listen to our intuition and senses. We remained still, open and aware. Through Bill's guidance, he helped me to "listen". Within five minutes I knew I had made contact with my partner's grandmother on her father's side, that the woman had a very strong personality, but was softer with her granddaughter, and that they were very close when my partner was young. I also told my partner that her grandmother stays with her and helps her from the other side. I don't know who was more amazed, me or my partner. She has had readings from professional mediums before and it is always her grandmother on her father's side who comes through, she revealed. Everything I told her made sense to her, and everything was confirmed through Bill. When it came time for my partner to read me, my father came through. She described him physically, which was correct; she told me he died fairly young of an illness, she described our relationship and also picked up that we lived very near one another. Everything she told me was accurate as well. She was shocked that she was able to do this.

It convinced me that although many people are born with the gift of mediumship, we all have the "ability" to be a medium, and at the very least, we can all develop some sort of communication with spirits on the other side. In having studied the paranormal for years, I have seen first hand that it is truly possible to communicate with spirits even if you are not "gifted" so to speak.

There are three terms which relate to the ways people can communicate with spirits on the other side. The term most people are familiar with is clairvoyance. Clairvoyance is a type of extrasensory perception or ESP. It is also considered to be part precognition and part telepathy. The word itself comes from the French and means "clear seeing". A person who has the ability to see a person, event or image from the past, present or future is a person who has clairvoyance. Physically the eyes cannot "see" what is before them. Instead, what is visioned comes from the "inner" eye. It is a form of receiving information through visual images or symbols. The clairvoyant learns to interpret these symbols or images which may be given to them by people or animals in spirit form. There are many types of clairvoyance and this form of communication has been studied throughout history. I am only touching on it here. A whole blog can probably be written on clairvoyance alone.

The next term is clairaudience, which is what paranormal investigator and friend Joe Giaquinto experiences. Clairaudience is the ability to receive voices, sound and music psychically. It is not audible through normal hearing. The word in French means "clear hearing". Sometimes the "inner voice" we think we hear may not be us at all. It is possible the voice is that of a spirit telling us what to do or giving us advice. In Joe's case, since he is advanced in this form of communication, he can sometimes carry on a conversation with a spirit clairaudiently. For the average person we may hear something through clairaudience and not even know it. It may be the voices of deceased loved ones or possibly angels or spirit guides.

In clairsentience, a person receives information from the spirits through touch, taste, smell, a gut feeling or through intuition. It is difficult to describe, because in a sense, you just "know" that a spirit is around or is giving you information. I am most familiar with this form because I have experienced it myself during the writing of Ghosts of Long Island II, More Stories of the Paranormal. I just "knew" and "felt" things and information coming from the spirits, but I could not explain how it was possible. The word clairsentience in French means "clear feeling" or "sensing". While writing, researching and investigating I was more open and aware of what was around me which enabled me for the first time to experience this unique phenomenon.

Pay attention to things such as intuition, sense, sight, sound, fleeting images and feelings. You may begin to notice a pattern as to what you may be sensitive to. As I mentioned, we all have the ability to communicate with the spirits. It is up to us to be willing to open our hearts and mind to a whole new realm...the realm of spirit communication.