What’s the difference between a medium and a psychic?

In one of the spiritual groups on Facebook I belong to, the question was posed for debate: ‘Are you a Psychic or Medium?’ I waited a while before I joined the discussion, to see what others were saying, and how it linked in with my own thinking.

If you look at discussions on the subject, they usually conclude with ‘Everyone is psychic, but not everyone is a medium.’ To some extent, I’d go along with that. We all have some extra sensory ability, but we don’t necessarily choose to acknowledge it or work with it. And a good medium needs to hone their psychic abilities and work with them in order to be able to effectively and reliably connect with Spirit.

A good friend of mine, who is both psychic and a medium self-deprecatingly describes herself like this:

I’m not a medium, I’m an extra large!

All joking aside, I am not too keen to attach labels, one way or another, because labels are limiting. Also, those of us who do work with Spirit and energy aren’s so neatly categorised, because our skills often cross more than one border. More of that later, but for me, one of the best articles I’ve read on the topic is this from James Van Praagh.

As I understand it, and as science tells us, everything is energy. Both psychics and mediums work with energies of different vibrations. The energy of the living vibrates at a lower frequency that the energy of those in the realm of Spirit. So the only way we can hope to communicate with them is to raise our own vibrations to a point where they will lower their energy to a level where we can communicate.

I see myself as a psychic and healer, but people who are more knowledgeable than me tell me I am also a medium. I have also been told this by Spirit, and the angels I work with. So what does that mean? To me, it means I am privileged, and I don’t care what people call me. I just do what I am guided to do by Spirit, and my own intuition, and I do it with love, for the highest good of all.

I have done demonstrations of mediumship, and spirits have obligingly come through. Until they show up, I have no idea who will join the party, but unfailingly, they help those who need it most with their messages. When I do private readings, it can be just about the energy of the person I’m reading for, or I may find I have an accompanying spirit anxious to impart a message to their loved one, or tell me something they need to know.

So, it’s all about the energy. One of those in the discussion mentioned psychics reading auras. I don’t see auras, but I can pick up on energy, even if the person isn’t in the room with me. Just a few days ago, I was talking to a friend who was having problems with one of his arms. I was able to pinpoint the area of the pain and send healing, and it’s not the first time it’s happened.

So, I am unable to see the aura of someone in the same room, but I can pick up on pain 1,000 miles away. It doesn’t mean I am a good psychic, a bad psychic or not psychic at all. All it means is I pick up on energy in a different way. I’ve sent distant healing and people have been able to tell me the exact time I did it, and I’ve had others tell me there was no need to send it, as they felt better now! So we all identify and work with energy in different ways.

When it comes to mediumship, it works differently again. Some people will come for a reading in the hope of contacting a specific person in spirit, but no medium, however experienced, can guarantee bringing through Aunt Maud, or indeed anyone at all. It takes a lot of energy to come through to our world with messages, so it’s not going to happen to order.

It’s common for departed souls to come back and make sure their loved ones are okay, and you may well sense their presence. But for a spirit to come through to a stranger and communicate a message is a different thing altogether. And a good medium will have spirits queued up to connect, because they trust the medium to get their message through. It’s not simple, and it’s not guaranteed.

The thing to remember is, while we choose to work with Spirit, they also choose whether they will work with us or not – they are not ours to command. Working with Spirit is a privilege not to be taken for granted or exploited, and the truth is, if you need an urgent message from Aunt Maud, she’ll come through when you need her, not when someone tries to summon her. Yes, she could come through as part of a famous medium’s demonstration, but she could equally come through to your neighbour on the corner who doesn’t talk about her gift.

It’s a very grey area, and it was muddied even more for me a few weeks ago. My ex husband passed to Spirit on 23 April. A couple of days before, Glenys and I felt a cold energy in the house. I also felt my mother’s energy, and she told me she had brought my husband to apologise and ask for my forgiveness, and Glenys’s forgiveness, for what had happened in the past. My mother had brought him, because she knew I needed closure, and she also recognised that he couldn’t pass peacefully without making his peace with us.

I had forgiven him some time ago – you cannot work with the light while there is darkness in your heart. We both said we forgave him, and we felt the energy change as he left with my mother.

The next day, the energy was back, and my mother told me he couldn’t be sure we weren’t holding a grudge. So Glenys and I joined in sending him love and healing, and telling him it was okay to go home, he had nothing more to keep him earthbound. Less than 24 hours later, he passed to Spirit peacefully in his sleep, although he had been in a lot of pain and distress for some time.

So, what can we learn from that episode, about whether I am a psychic, a medium or both? Some people say that psychics work with the energy of the living, while mediums work with spirit energy. I worked with both that day – my mother has been in Spirit since 1988, while my husband was still on the Earth plane, held back by unfinished business.

The one thing that runs through all this – that runs through everything – is love. Because my mother loved me, she brought my husband to me, since I wasn’t able to go to him. If I had, I would have made sure he knew he was forgiven, and saved him a journey!

Despite our separation, he loved me enough to hold on to a life that was painful on all levels until he was sure of my forgiveness. And Glenys had enough love in her heart to give him permission to go home. As for me, I was able to remember the loving times and leave behind recent events so that I could remember him as he deserved to be remembered – a man who loved life and loved me, until illness turned him into something he wasn’t, and there was no alternative but to separate.

Whether you label yourself a psychic, a medium, or something else is up to you. It can be convenient for others, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that important. What really matters is how you do your sacred work. If you have love in your heart and humility in your soul, you will shine your light wherever it’s needed. The things that matter most cannot be neatly labelled and compartmentalised. Read more on my blog here.