Every Halloween I hear people talk about how “the veil is thin” between the living world and the spirit world. I don’t know about everyone else, but my veil must be on a continuous diet, because it’s always thin. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s even there anymore.
Working as a full-time medium, I often encounter people with varying degrees of intuitive or psychic ability. For many of these people born with the gift of being able to sense spirit activity, Halloween is just another day of the year. If you have the ability to sense the dead, it’s usually a 365/24/7 job.
When I was growing up, I was intrigued with the idea of ghosts and haunted houses, just as long as it wasn’t happening in my house. There were nights when I was young where I would hear people talking in my hallway. Disembodied, echoing, usually inaudible voices. Enough to scare the heck out of a little kid. Luckily this did not happen that often, but when it did about the only escape I had was lighting the light or running down the hall to my mom’s bed.
I was drawn to the idea of ghosts, but only began to understand why, when I met others who had personal experiences with mediums. A good friend had gone to see a medium in her town. The experience both intrigued and frightened me. My friend offered to get me a session as a birthday gift, but I was too fearful to go. Who knows what I would have been told back then? I recalled my mother’s experience she had as a child, when she went along with her mother to see a medium holding a “home circle” at a neighbor’s house. The medium put her hand over my mother’s head and exclaimed, “This child has the gift! She could be a great medium!” The strong pronouncement sent my mother running, screaming out the door and all the way home where she said she hid under her bed. If I had gone to see my friend’s medium, I feared being told dead people were watching me. I may not have run screaming, but I certainly would have been affected by any news that the ghosts in my head were real.
During the eight tours I just completed at the historic (and haunted) Hermitage in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ, I could see members of the audience quietly (and some not so quietly) reacting to the energy of the house. As we moved slowly through the shadowy old house, part of which dates to the 1750s and was once the wedding venue for Aaron Burr and his wife Theodosia, I observed several people feeling bothered by something they could not see or understand. Several ladies in the group felt a very slight grasp of their hands, very faint, like that of a child. When I mentioned that I felt there was a child’s spirit in the house who happened to be drawn to mother figures, the typical reaction was anywhere from shock to a pleasant relief. Others asked why their chests felt heavy in one particular room. “This is where Cornelia ‘Killie’ Rosencrantz died of TB,” I replied, “You may be experiencing what she did in her final days on earth.” Again, the reaction spanned uneasiness to understanding. Many people have these feeling throughout their lives but have no one to validate them and reassure them that it all comes with the territory of inheriting psychic ability.
I would have been so much more at ease if I had someone walking my early life path with me, explaining that the unseen things I was feeling (that others were not feeling) were perfectly normal experiences—for a person with psychic ability. I would have truly enjoyed knowing other psychics growing up, but it rarely happened. You just didn’t talk about being psychic back then and if you did, you had to make sure you had the right, open-minded audience around you. I did run into people with ability and that gave me some comfort, but I needed a teacher more than a conversation partner.
It took me a long time in the field to learn how to use my gift and enter a career as a medium. I share some of those experiences during my events, when I meet people showing signs of having the gift (it is a gift, it just doesn’t come with an owner’s manual). I try to instill in them the idea that they are not alone. The problem is there is plenty of material out there on being psychic, but very few “support groups” where those with ability can learn and understand how to use or at least deal with their gifts.
Psychic ability is typically passed down in genetics. The ability can lie dormant, be suppressed (which usually does not work by the way), it can work in the background or be accepted and embraced as part of who a person is. The last is really the only real solution. If you have psychic or intuitive ability, just know you have probably always had it, it’s part of you. There are ways to learn to control the ability and to protect yourself from negative energies.
Those with psychic ability probably also realize that Halloween is simply amateur hour for many. The veil may be thin for the general population at Halloween, but for the rest of us, it’s just another day in the life of someone with the gift.
Recently, the Today Show did a great segment on my path to becoming a medium. So many people have reached out to me for help with their gifts. Some people are just very intuitive or sensitive, others have true mediumistic ability and can communicate with spirit. After years of being asked, I have started to train people to understand and use their psychic gift. By the way, that does not mean you will have to change careers and become a full-time medium, it means being comfortable with who and what you are. I hope that, through my own life experiences growing up psychic and working in the field as a medium, I can help shed some light on a sometimes-shadowy subject. I plan on starting some basic classes called “Exploring Psychic Awareness” next spring. Hang in there. You are not alone! Stay tuned, and stay—tuned in.
Happy Halloween!
