Question: I have heard you talk about doing readings and getting the spirit person that they want to hear from. I have heard other mediums say that you are supposed to allow who ever to come through. Sometimes I just let who ever come through and it is the person the sitter wanted to hear from but other times they tell me that they weren’t close to that person or barely knew them. I don’t understand why in some readings, the person who the sitter wants comes through and will be there, and other times it is someone they barely knew or the one they wanted aren't there. Why does this happen? What is the correct way to handle these situations?

Answer: I am going to answer your question from a bunch of different perspectives, including theory, a mechanics, ethics, and from a personal preference and client preference. Additionally, from past experiences, this topic can be quite controversial with some mediums. This is much due to a religious or a spiritual belief system. Thus, you will hear me say throughout, ultimately you need to decide what is best for you.

Most spiritual theories, as well as even science, talks about the energetic concept of “oneness”. In other words, we are all connected. We are all spirit and energy. Spirit is unbound by time and location. Thus, it isn’t that the spirit communicator the sitter wants to hear from isn’t there or around, they are absolutely around. Spirit is present in all places at the same time.

However, people put human concepts on spirit in terms of very physical and material standards and limitations. The notion that the spirit communicator is not around or not with their loved one is inaccurate based on the concept of oneness. For example, it would be like saying that air is only in one place and not another. Air is everywhere. To go even further, no one has any idea what/who “there” is, as no one has been able map the spirit world. We still do not have any real concrete idea how mediumship happens, especially the mechanism on spirit's end, because we are not completely aware of the spirit world like we are in our physical environment.

Furthermore, we are in our infancy of understanding consciousness and for years we have though that consciousness was specifically connected to the brain. That all is changing. Theories now suggest that consciousness is energy, and the brain is a very narrow filter for that energy. Our brain filters things our physical senses can perceive, primarily for survival. For example, the human eye can only detect 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. We term the tiny fraction that humans can see as visible light and carry on with our lives, largely oblivious to the huge spectrum of electromagnetic waves present all around us. In terms of hearing, humans cannot hear sounds below 20 Hz (infrasound) or above 20,000 Hz (ultrasound) . Thus, our senses that we use to perceive our physical (and even no physical) environment is limited.

Additionally, I am not inclined to tell mediums what to do, or how to handle readings with clients/sitters. This is completely an individual medium’s choice. However, like I stated previously, mediums will and do certainly bring strong opinions and beliefs on this topic. This stems from a multitude of areas including personal beliefs, what their own personal philosophy is on mediumship, their perception of spirit, how they have been taught, what they find easiest, etc. The only requirements that I encourage that it the readings be evidential and ethical. Mediumship tends to be so personalized, and one method or style does not fit for all. I fall back on people doing what works for them.

That being said, there are plenty of mediums that will just allow whoever come through and are successful with this. However, there are some mediums that do this, and the clients leave unsatisfied because the person they wanted to hear from didn’t come through. Some mediums do customized/personalized readings (where you get the communicator they want) and are successful with this. However, some clients won’t want a personalized reading and just want you to bring through whoever. Again, there is no right or wrong. You just have to determine what you feel works best for you and your clients (if you are at that stage of your development). What I can do is tell you what I do personally in my business and how I handle readings with clients.

Professionally, I do focus on the client and I do customized readings where I do get the spirit communicator they want to hear from. This is because the client is the one coming to me and paying me for a service. This isn’t to say that spirit isn’t important, as one doesn’t negate the other. However, without the client, there is no communication. Without the client, there is no business. Additionally, in my experience, most clients want to hear from a specific someone, and this makes complete sense. Also in my experience, spirit wants to connect with them as well!

As soon as you charge a fee for your mediumship, there is an expectation of a service and quality by the client (and rightly so). I give an analogy on the business aspect of mediumship in terms of clients as follows: If a customer were to go to an Italian restaurant and order lasagna, but, when the waiter returns and they do not bring lasagna, they instead bring tacos. The customer is not happy because they didn’t get what they ordered. If the customer asks again for the lasagna and the waiter tells them that they thought they were meant to have tacos, or that tacos would be better for them, or that the lasagna is unavailable and they must take the tacos, etc. again, the customer is unlikely to come back to that restaurant. Not only that, but they are also unlikely to recommend that restaurant to anyone else.

This example with the restaurant is sometimes what happens in mediumship with clients. For example, the mother wants to hear from her son, but the medium brings though the grandfather that the client barely knew or even despised. The client will likely not leave satisfied or feel they received good service in which they paid for. To take this analogy even further, this may be the one time that the mother took the risk of going to a medium, only to be told that her son was busy or unavailable, or worse, that they didn’t want to talk to her. This is not only completely untrue, especially when you understand the mechanics of spirit communication, but not remotely provable and seemingly cruel and damaging to client.

This brings me to what I believe to be ethical considerations as well. If a medium goes with whoever is in their awareness, and does not explain to the client the mechanics of what is occurring during a mediumship reading, it can be distressing to a client who is likely already grieving. Many clients really don’t want to go-to a medium. They rather have the communication with their loved one on their own.

Thus, for some, if they do decide to go-to a medium, it is a big deal for a number of reasons. They may be vulnerable, scared, nervous, anxious or even may feel silly because they have been told any number of things about mediums’ including they are fake, frauds, making things up, preying on people, etc. Additionally, the monetary expense to go-to a medium can be, with some mediums’, substantial. Add to this hoping to hear from their child, spouse or parent and the medium taps into the frequency of their second cousin twice removed, Vinny, on step-mom’s side of the family that they saw rarely between the years of 1980 and 1983.

Most mediums will readily refund a disappointing reading, some do not. However, merely refunding money when the client is likely putting so much on the line by even going to a medium, is not expressing compassion for the inability to link. Remember, most people coming to see a medium will be experiencing grief. Explaining to the client that it is not their fault that their loved one didn’t come through is vital, and loving to the client. As mediums’ we do not want to compound the person’s suffering.

Explain to the client it is not them, it is you the medium that was not able to make the link. If you are not someone who wants to do a customized reading, refer the client to someone who does do it. Please do not tell the client that their loved one didn’t want to communicate with them, or they don’t know how to communicate yet, are busy, that the client is grieving to much or low frequency so the communication can not happen, or that Vinny was meant to be for the reading versus their son who has just passed. There is no way to prove ANY of this and is surmount to excuse making, blaming the spirit world, or the client.

There are mechanics about how and why customized readings work. At this point in my mediumship, it has become less frequent that I am having to ask the sitter who it is they want to hear from. This is because I have developed my ability to be able to feel who it is they want to connect with. Getting the spirit communicator the client wants to connect with is a mechanic that is learned just like any other mechanic in mediumship. I tell students in terms of mechanics, communication with spirit consists of, but is not limited to, awareness, intention and love.

In order explain awareness, I give the analogy of people in a city crowd. Some people’s eyes will be drawn to a woman with big floppy hat, other people may be drawn to the guy with beaming red hair, others will notice little kid with a toy, and some will notice the old man in suspenders.
Observation to certain people in a crowd is subjective and personal to what the medium is drawn to or notices.

When you connect with someone the sitter loves, you can feel this love as an energetic pull in the reading. This pull then lends it self to me being aware of them. It is like having my head tuned in the right direction to notice and be aware of the spirit communicator. I can still ignore this pull and get into my head or rely on the first thing that grabs my attention. It is only because I practiced the mechanics of doing a customized reading by asking who they wanted to hear from, that I no longer to ask in readings.

To give a counterviewpoint as to the reason some mediums object to customized readings, is because of the belief that the medium is dictating who comes through. However, the medium is ALWAYS dictating who comes through based on their mind and the filter of their mind. Others factors such as the ability of the medium, their own comfort level, level of experience, and who they notice in the crowd so to speak play into connecting with spirit.

The bias of medium, especially when starting out, is to go for the safety of what they know. Also, mediums admittingly will avoid certain types of spirit communicators based on their own life experience or comfort level. Hopefully, this is where some personal exploration and development will come in. This may not even be happening on a conscious level, but subconscious level.

Additionally, if we are to presume spirit is intelligent, and they object to customized readings because the mediums is dictating, then why would they allow the communication to even happen? Why would they provide any evidence at all to the medium? It is impossible to prove that just because the medium becomes aware of a specific communicator, that it was spirit who is deterring, and not the mediums who is deciding based on the above examples, mechanics, and the filter/bias of the medium's mind.

Hope this help! Happy practicing and developing!