An eternal connection

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Multiple psychics and mediums offer their personal experiences with readings and the spiritual world

Once during a grand event, Lorri Walker, a spiritual psychic medium and certified multidimensional healer, walked up to a guest, alerted her of her mother’s presence and passed on a message about the whereabouts of an important family treasure. Imagine the guest’s surprise when Walker’s prediction turned out to be true.

After the pandemic began, the popularity of psychic readings has risen due to people seeking different ways to cope with the added stress the new virus brought.

According to an industry research report from IBISWorld, the psychic services industry “is anticipated to rise at an annualized rate of 0.5% to total $2.2 billion,” based on revenue earned between 2016-2021. The majority of that growth occurred during 2020 and this year.

This rise in revenue shows the increase in people adopting New Age beliefs, which includes reincarnation, astrology, psychics and mediumship. The Pew Research Center also found in 2018 that around “six-in-ten American adults accept at least one of these New Age beliefs.”

This is great business for all the psychics and mediums out there, with clients coming in search of life advice or grief counseling. But what is it like having such supernatural powers? Six psychic mediums share their personal experiences with readings.

When a psychic, like psychic medium Bill Philipps from Orange County, does a reading for a client, he “relays to the living the messages he receives from the other side, through what is known as clair senses.”

These clair senses are commonly known intuitive senses, called clairvoyance or “clear seeing,” clairaudience or “clear hearing,” claircognizant or “clear knowing” and clairsentient or “clear feeling.”

Every medium is different and might not possess every single one of these senses, though they often possess multiple. Lorri Walker happens to have all of them and these abilities are used to allow clients to speak with dead loved ones.

“Well, the way I do it is, I just have learned how to energetically connect with someone, so I don’t use tarot or crystal balls or anything like that,” says Lorri Walker, who is situated in Newport Beach. “I just do. I just I intend to.”

During a reading, mediums tap into certain energy fields, which opens them up to receiving messages from spirits around them. This often involves clearing the mind and focusing on the aura of the other person.

Since auras are just energy fields, distance doesn’t affect the information received from psychics. They claim it does not harm their abilities in any way and like modern teletechnology, spirits can relay messages from long distances. Walker compares this phenomenon to how radios work.

“So, it’s just like radios, there’s radio waves all out there but we don’t see them right? But as long as you know how to turn on the radio you can get music out of it,” Walker says. “So, me, I’ve learned how to turn on my ability to tap into that energy or, like radio waves, I’ve learned how to turn it on and turn it off.”

Sometimes, another type of reading method, called vocal trance channeling, is used. During these types of readings, mediums will go into a trance that allows spirits to talk directly through them, using their vocal cords and influencing their body movements.

“I feel a great source of huge energy course through me and if I could describe it, it’d be a very large, glittery golden light, very loving, incredible embrace that goes through me,” Shawna Allard, a psychic medium and life coach for around 33 years, says, describing what she usually feels when trancing.

Monique Hemingway, another psychic medium who practices vocal trance channeling and reiki specialist for over 13 years, says that guides, which are like guardian angels, require permission to utilize her vocal cords.

“Because I am a channel as well, my guide will use my whole body as an instrument to get messages across,” Hemingway says. “So, a lot of times in a reading they will have me do things with my hands or I’ll sit a certain way or my face has an expression.”

Both Allard and Hemingway claim that their voice changes during a channeling session and aren’t very aware of what they are going to say or do. It is easy to mistake this as a form of possession, but they state this is not the case.

Possession is often associated with demons or evil spirits, but the psychic mediums are careful to avoid the bad. They surround their auras with good and light because like how shadows work, the dark and light cannot occupy the same space.

Though mediums tend to avoid low vibrations or the dark, it’s sometimes impossible to escape the unfortunate realities of our world. Susan Grau, a life coach, certified hypnotherapist, master reiki specialist and evidential psychic medium, who has been in the profession for over 30 years, works with grieving families to help heal them.

“I’ve seen children that have burned in cars and parents, who were in my office, having to deal with that or a child that they found that’s hanging in their bedroom that’s 4-years-old or 10-years-old or 12-years-old,” Grau says. “I have seen things and experienced things along with that family, not nearly as painful as they’re dealing with, of course, but I go home at night sometimes and I sob and I tell my husband ‘I can’t do this anymore, I can’t see anymore of this horrible—’ But then I realize that I’m meant to, and I’m meant to help these people, and that’s my job.”

As not only a medium but also a certified grief counselor, she has seen multiple tragic visions, including burning children, hanging corpses and grieving families. Due to experiencing these events secondhand, it disappoints her whenever someone mocks her career as a psychic medium.

“Anyone with a soul that is sitting in that room and hearing about someone who’s found their child hanging or overdosed or whatever else has happened is not someone who’s a vampire of grief,” Grau says.

It is common for people to doubt psychics and the spiritual world, especially with the amount of scammers present in the industry. Seeing is believing and it’s hard to believe something you can’t see. That’s why some spiritual professionals would recommend an evidential psychic medium.

Evidential psychic mediums use their abilities in a way that searches for proof that their powers are not merely an act.

“On a mediumship level, I ask those who wish to communicate from the other side to blend with my energy so I can bring through information and validating facts about them to prove they are still around,” says Lisa Morrison, an evidential psychic medium, certified akashic records reader, reiki master teacher, crystal reiki practitioner and certified past life regression therapist.

They try to gather information they could not possibly know from a detailed Google research session, like the personality of a client or specific events that happened in their past. Their goal is to show proof, though some might still argue that it is all mere coincidence.

Whatever a person’s opinion on the matter might be, there is no doubt that there are still things that humans have yet to understand. Intuition is real and how far it goes depends on how much a person believes.

“It’s a matter of trusting what we’re receiving,” Grau says. “We’re all intuitive, but the difference between maybe me and someone else is that I trust everything the spirit gives me.”

Updated Dec. 27 at 10:49 a.m. to add info, quote and hyperlinks

Updated Dec. 27 at 9:58 p.m. to fix minor spelling error

Updated Dec. 28 at 11:01 p.m. to fix minor grammar errors and reword phrase

Updated Dec. 28 at 12:22 a.m. to fix quote and rephase a sentence

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