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People often contact me asking if they have the “right” stuff to become a medium. I hear comments like, “I can feel spirits around me but I can’t see them. Does this mean I can’t be a good medium?” Or, “I get vivid images of spirits and things they are showing me, but I don’t hear spirits speaking to me like mediums do on television shows. Have you had similar thoughts about your mediumistic abilities? Do you wonder if you have what it takes to become an accomplished medium? If you are reading this blog, then most likely you do. Start thinking about the different ways you might have experienced spirit contact in the past and continue reading.

Since the inception of modern spiritualism, presenting validating evidence is vital in helping to identify the spirit making contact through a medium. The process by which the validating evidence is gathered comes through the various “clairs” of the medium which enables them to describe a spirit’s appearance, their relationship to the sitter (the person getting the reading or message), how the spirit died, and other important pieces of information. It is through this process that a spirit’s actual identity can be believed.

Some mediums are more specialized by using only 1—2 of the below listed psychic “clairs” and some utilize them all. This in no way should be construed to infer that a medium who does not use all the “clairs” is any less gifted or trained than one who utilizes all of them.

Mediumship abilities stem from our psychic senses often referred to as “the clairs”. After years of teaching psychic and Mediumship development, I have noticed most students will have at least one to two strong psychic traits. I call these the Primary Abilities, or
“primaries”. For example, from experience I have determined I have two primary abilities and a one strong secondary ability. My primary ability is clairvoyance (clear-seeing). Clairvoyance is the ability to see relevant images in the mind’s eye. My other primary ability is clairsentience. Clairsentience is ability to intuitively sense physical sensations not normally present or to feel the emotions of others. (*For a description of what all the “clairs” mean, see the end of this article for the link to my web page explaining their meanings.)

My Primary Strong Psychic Senses

sensesSm Clairvoyance is how I first begin to be aware of a spirit linking with me. I have learned over the years that my clairvoyance is the natural way I first begin to sense spirits making contact. When I have set my intention to receive spirit communication, I start seeing pictures right away. Sometimes my eyes are open for this and sometimes, they are closed. These images can range from vivid clarity to hazy. I might only receive one image at first or several in rapid succession like a slide show. The image, or images, might be of a person’s face, their whole body, homes, landscapes, or symbolic images that give me additional information about the spirit linking with me.

My other primary is clairsentience (clear-feeling). When a spirit is coming into my energy field, I might start noticing physical sensations in and around my body. These feelings may or may not occur simultaneously with the pictures I am seeing. I could experience a fleeting pain. I might experience light-headedness, which for me is a sure indicator of a spirit attempting to make their presence known. Another possible indicator is a tickling sensation somewhere on my body. This tickling, or cobwebby sensation, usually happens on my face, neck, or on my arms. Hairs on the back my neck might stand on end. I might feel a pressure or fluttering sensation in my gut, area, a heaviness or pressure in my chest or some other part of the body, or even notice unaccountable drafts, breezes, or unusual coldness.

Over the years, I have learned how to interpret these sensations. For example, a feeling of tightness in my chest area could indicate that the spirit is trying to show me they died of a heart attack, a respiratory illness, or in an accident where the chest was actually crushed. Additionally, I might experience a shortness of breath or a momentary feeling I can’t breathe. These are just some indicators I experience letting me know a spirit linking with me and communicating to me important bits of information. This information can be about their physical or emotional state near death, or the death experience itself. Often these sensations come with a strong feeling of emotion. These feelings of emotion are called, clair-empathy.

clairsentience Clair-empathy is the sensing and feeling emotions of others. For example, I might sense that the spirit had a sunny disposition in life or were a fairly happy person. Or, I might sense they were difficult or angry in life or had feelings of great unhappiness at the time of death. Usually, these types are feelings are registered in my solar plexus area and then wash over me like a wave of emotion.

I have learned to pay close attention to these types of feelings when linking with a spirit. If I am unsure of what I am picking up, I ask my special Mediumship spirit guides for clarification. (Special Mediumship Helper Guides will be covered in a future post.) All this takes some work and practice to master.

My Secondary Strong Psychic Senses

My two primary senses are often accompanied by my secondary ability of claircognizance (clear knowing). Claircognizance is receiving information about events or people one would normally have no way of knowing about.

When I receive a claircognizant “hit”, I have a knowing about certain bits of information without thinking about how I know it. I will then relay this information to a client, or group, because I have learned to trust this “knowing” ability. Whether or not the recipient(s) of the message can identify with what I have presented, is something I will also be addressing in a future blog post.

I have to say that all this self-knowledge about my own Mediumship and psychic abilities did not happen effortlessly in the beginning of my Mediumship training and unfoldment. In the early years, there was some trial and error until I learned to fully trust the information coming in.

Here’s my confession. My weaker abilities include clair-audience which is the “hearing” of messages from the beyond. I cannot hear a spirit physically speak to me as with some mediums. However, I do get messages that register in my mind’s inner hearing. Another of my weaker psychic senses is clairaulience. Clair-aulience is the noticing of smells or fragrances which have no reason to be present. An example of this might be smelling roses, a strong smell of an aftershave like “Old Spice”, smoke or acrid burning smells, cooking smells, and almost other type of smell you can think of. Of course, it is important to rules these odors out within the group or room you are in. This may seem elementary, but if you have someone present wearing “Old Spice”, for example, you need to ascertain this so you can rule it out as coming from a spirit. This isn’t to say I never experience clairaulience. I do. It’s just not that common for me.

All in all, does it bother me that I do not have strong clairaudience or clair-aulience or some of the other psychic attributes? Absolutely not! I realize that the way I personally perceive spirit contact is unique unto me and that I am perfectly fine with how I naturally identify spirit contact. The way you might perceive a spirit presence and get validating evidence could be the exact opposite of how I do. The trick is knowing what your strongest to weakest abilities are. And, when I mention weaker, I am not inferring you are somehow deficient if you have weaker psychic abilities. We all do.

There is no right or wrong set of psychic abilities to connect with and communicate with spirits. Be content with your own set of abilities if you know what they are. If after learning about the various clairs we use to communicate with spirits, and there is a psychic sense you wish to work on and expand, great. If not, you don’t need to do anything different. What you do need to do however, is to expand the senses you already possess to sharpen them to your highest potential. One of the ways you can do this is through dedicated exercises and meditation. Keep a journal of your progress and watch how you can grow and expand your own natural psychic and mediumistic abilities.

The way I perceive spirit contact could be very different from the way you do if you have already been experiencing spirit contact. This is the point of this article; to show that Mediumship and psychic attributes are different from person to person. And I wish to assure you that there is no right or incorrect, way to connect with spirits. Additionally, if you are not yet trained in mediumship, you might have noticed some confusion regarding the way you usually make spirit contact. This is where Mediumship training and management comes in. With a trusted teacher, you should be able to start identifying your abilities, use your strong ones to their best advantage and work with your weaker ones to increase them. This is one of the most important aspects of Mediumship training.

Exercise:

Devise a short meditation for yourself to test your psychic abilities at present. For example, imagine a beautiful forest and see if you can clearly see everything in it with your clairvoyance.

When you have done this with all the clairs (see link below), write down what you believed to be your strongest to weaker ones at this time. Be aware that the strength of certain psychic attributes can change over time.