One of the most common questions I get asked is how I receive information when I do readings. The primary thing that people need to understand is that the idea of a ghost whispering things in the medium’s ear is, for the most part, very inaccurate. Having the ability to read people or situations is not just about communication with the dead. That’s a very small part of it and not every person with extrasensory perception even has the ability to communicate with the dead, and focusing on that small aspect of it can limit things quite a bit. A greater number of people with extrasensory perception read energy as opposed to the dead. That has a lot to do with receiving information on instinct and having it without actually talking to the ghost of Uncle Charlie.

In general, I don’t know where information from psychics/intuitives/whatever word you want to use comes from because usually it’s just there passing through us like water through a funnel. I think it’s a combination of being extra sensitive to the environment around us as well as being given information from an outside source. Sensitivity to the environment appears to be far more commonplace and not very supernatural at all if you think about it. The blind have heightened senses to make up for the one sense they lack and that’s not really considered supernatural. It’s just the way they’ve naturally adapted to their environment. I think if people stop putting extrasensory abilities on such a high pedestal, it would be easier to see it as simply another talent. Some people can paint masterpieces while others can’t put together a stick figure. Some people are highly sensitive to energy and spirits while others are not so sensitive to them. Part of understanding such abilities is taking them off the pedestal and bringing them down to earth.

Every intuitive who chooses to develop their abilities also ends up developing their own “language”. I put it in quotes because it’s rarely a verbal language. For most of us, psychic language is deeply layered and highly symbolic to the person conducting the reading. Mediums learn quickly that spirits almost never communicate by verbal means like we do here in the physical. Spirits communicate by thought and emotion. It goes against our physical instincts because we are in bodies that communicate by spoken word, which is actually quite limiting, and can sometimes frustrate spirits. They communicate their messages to us with visual images, emotional impressions, physical sensations, etc., and the filters that our own brains impose on those things can and will cause misinterpretations at times, which is why it’s not possible for any medium/psychic/intuitive to be 100% accurate. We are, after all, only human and sometimes symbolism from spirits will come across as unclear or mean something different to us than them. Mediums/psychics/intuitives who try to do readings while overly tired, stressed out, or sick will have a higher rate of misinterpretation because their concentration on symbolic reading won’t be as sharp. Misinterpretation or lack of information will happen, but that doesn’t make the medium/psychic/intuitive a fake. It makes them human. Doing readings is like playing telephone and it takes a lot of practice to learn the symbols and sensations that resonate with the person doing the reading. It’s very similar with reading energy, except you’re not reading an intelligent entity. You’re reading feelings or events that have already passed.

Psychic language is never the same from one reader to another because different feelings, symbols, etc., mean different things to different people. Some of us are more auditory, while others are more visual. The object for the spirit is to get us to say the correct thing based on our own points of references. With energy, we have to interpret feelings and flashes of things that already happened. Sometimes it’s flashes of things that haven’t happened yet too. Energy tends to be more of intuition and feeling rather than anything else, and can require a more subtle touch to read correctly.

My personal psychic language is a bit different, even within the context of other people in this line of work.

Living People

I work very hard not to read people without their permission (ethical issues) but I do almost always have a gut reaction when I meet someone as to whether their intentions are good or bad. That means their real heart, not their good or bad choices on the surface. Initial gut reactions come as colors. White or gold is good. Red or orange is bad. Blue or green happens when I meet another person with abilities (I tend to recognize “my own kind” on sight). Mixtures of colors do happen because nobody is entirely good or entirely bad but one color will usually outweigh the other.

After I’m with a person for a certain amount of time, I usually develop a “taste” for their energy or soul. I have not encountered another intuitive who reacts to energy by taste and I used to not say it out loud because it seemed so odd. By taste, I mean it in the literal sense. Certain foods get assigned to certain people’s personal energy. Male energy tends to be savory tastes and female energy tends to be sweet tastes. I don’t choose who gets what taste. It happens on its own after a certain amount of time has passed in their company. I’ve also noticed that people who have consistently confused, bitter, unhappy energy will taste burned or otherwise bad to me, and people who I really enjoy will be associated with my favorite foods. The taste is not present all the time though. It usually comes and goes when I first encounter the person and if that person experiences an emotional or mental spike. My theory about why I “taste” energy comes from the fact that my way of knowing the world is through my mouth. I can’t use my hands, so I use my mouth instead, which means I don’t have a choice but to taste a lot of objects every day. If psychic information is highly symbolic based on the person’s point of reference, then it’s not illogical to think I might experience energy in the form of taste symbolism.

Sometimes we encounter people with rather big, intense energy as well. That can come from passion, intense devotion to something, or even ego. People with big, intense energy fields come across to me as physical sensations and I can feel their positions in a room even if I’m not looking at them. I don’t encounter it very often (I notice a lot of people who claim to be intense are just normal people full of bravado), but when I do, it can be different whether the person’s intensity is good or bad. Good intensity comes across as a physical sensation of a vacuum pulling me toward that person with a mild tingling sensation on the skin. Bad intensity feels like trying to push the wrongs ends of magnets together and the vacuum sensation becomes frightening like looking into a black hole. An intense person’s mood can create both effects and it tells me whether I should stay away or not.

General Energy

Energy fields that come from nature, or past or future events, not living or dead people, come across to me as physical sensations. I almost never see anything visual in this area. When I do, it has to do with the imprint of energy depicting events that already happened or, in rarer cases, events that haven’t happened yet. Imprints of energy from events tend to replay like movie clips on repeat. They can range from shadowy, hazy, and only a glimpse, to crystal clear replays of entire scenes.

I’m not so in tune with environmental energy as others because it requires the ability to pick up on very subtle cues. I’m not so good with subtlety. I do pick up on big natural disasters before they happen. The ability to pick up on disturbances in environmental energy means having the ability to pull yourself out of your own circumstances to feel out whether sensations are coming from you or something else. If it’s not you feeling the disturbance, then there’s some outside energy causing it. For me, it’s usually the approach of severe weather before the news reports it or some kind of major disaster like 9/11. Using 9/11 as an example, I felt severe energy disturbances for the entire summer before it happened. The trouble is I never really know exactly what’s coming, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to stop it.

Spirit Communication

This is the type of work that is most deeply layered with symbolism. To get me to say certain things, I’ll be influenced by images I understand most of the time. Movies are a big reference when we’re talking about time periods. For example, if it’s a female going through the mid-19th century, I’ll see a Gone with the Wind poster, and if it’s a male going through the mid-19th century, it’s usually a Gettysburg reference. Regency period spirits usually reference Jane Austen to me. Late Victorian spirits usually reference Edith Wharton to me. These symbols are just to identify the period, not any other specific information. Since those things are so familiar to me, I jump to say the correct thing instantaneously. Those are just a couple of examples, however. There are so many more.

Conveying emotion comes from symbols in nature for me most of the time. “I love you” is pink roses for family love and red roses for romantic love. I’ve heard of other mediums using that symbolism as well. Water tends to go along with emotion. If a spirit is fulfilled or wants to convey fulfillment to someone here in the physical, I typically see a clay pitcher getting filled up with spring water. If the spirit is drained or wants to convey being drained to someone here in the physical, I typically see the clay pitcher being poured out into the grass and the water (emotion, life force) being wasted. The need for physical healing is conveyed by liquid light moving over, around, through the affected areas.

To get me to say something like, “You’re likely to have an opportunity to move in three years,” I’ll see a red 3 and a house. Numbers and letters in red are future and numbers and letters in blue are past. Measuring out days, weeks, months, or years is not met with symbolism per se but more of a gut reaction. I usually “know” which time measurement is the right one. If I don’t know, I say so.

Sometimes I do have auditory information from spirits. Oddly enough, it happens when there are foreign languages more than English. I suspect it’s designed to get me to point out when someone is foreign or spoke a foreign language. Establishing relationships looks like pieces of family trees in my head. I don’t see the names but I do see the branches extending from the person being read, whether they are alive or not. They conduct energy on levels. Mothers, aunts, older friends are on the same level. Grandparents, great aunts, much older friends are on the same level. Sisters, cousins, contemporary friends are on the same level. Children, nieces, children of friends are on the same level. You see how this works. It’s the same with male relations. From the energy level, I can sometimes sort out which role on the level the person or entity fills.

That’s just a piece of how it works for me.