You Might Be a Psychic or Medium!

Surprising activity at a beginner’s workshop.

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and founder of the trusted psychic and medium directory, BestPsychicDirectory.com.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

In 2001, Melissa and I attended a workshop on psychic and mediumistic abilities presented by a medium named Gordon Smith from Scotland. I didn’t intend to discover any profound ability in myself, but I was curious to see what other beginners might do. The $40 workshop was presented at the First Spiritualist Church of Quincy, Massachusetts, on a Wednesday evening. About forty people attended.

My father passed in 1997, so this was about four years into my investigation into life after death. By this time, I had met several psychics and mediums, already had my first past-life regression and life-between-lives regression, and was having new experiences involving guided meditation, animal communication, spirit artistry, and energy healing.

A few mediums I met were members of spiritualist churches, so they invited Melissa and me to participate in several of their workshops. Often, these churches would sponsor a medium from other parts of the world (usually England), which meant paying for their travel and giving them a place to stay (usually in another medium’s home) in exchange for the medium teaching workshops and offering public demonstrations of their ability.

Gordon Smith was quite popular in the UK. He was known as The Psychic Barber. The pastor of the First Spiritualist Church of Quincy (Massachusetts) was a medium and spirit artist named Rita Berkowitz. Because I had gotten to know her, she invited Melissa and me to experience Gordon’s workshop at her church. It was a six-hour round trip to attend, but I hoped it would be worth it.

Gordon Smith tested our abilities through several workshop experiments. First, he paired every attendee with a stranger so that partners knew nothing about one another. Gordon then gave us an exercise in which we attempted to learn something about a stranger (our workshop partner) by absorbing information through their aura.

I was astounded at how well some people did. One attendee picked up on his partner’s childhood trauma. Another relayed memories of her partner’s honeymoon. A third workshop attendee was aware of her partner’s work-related problems. This was all done simply by standing near the person.

When it was my turn, my mind went completely blank. The best I could hope was that my partner had no past, but that wasn’t the case.

The second exercise involved psychometry. Attendees held something personal that belonged to their workshop partner, like a watch, a piece of jewelry, or a scarf, and then we would see what information we could pick up from that object.

Dawn, the girl who held my watch, said it was a gift I had given myself to celebrate something but that it no longer held the importance it once had when I first bought it. The watch was a gift that Melissa and I had purchased in celebration of overcoming my five-year depression. The watch had lost its significance because it had been many years since I overcame that challenging experience.

Next, Gordon had us try our hands at mediumship. I’ve shared a brief version of this story in another article, but this is a more detailed account of what happened. I got paired up with a guy named Craig for the exercise. I didn’t know him personally, but I knew he was a healer at the church. Craig wasn’t a medium but had been offering his healing gift to the church for years.

Melissa and I were invited to experience an Easter service at this Spiritualist church a year prior. At one point during the service, they invited attendees to sit in the healing circle, which meant they would sit in a chair while healers from the church stood behind their chairs and offered them healing energy. Melissa sat in the healing circle and happened to have Craig as her healer. As she sat silently while Craig offered his healing energy, Melissa’s eyes began to flutter uncontrollably. She said it wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was a bizarre response. She had never experienced her eyes fluttering like that before. Rita, the church pastor, later told us that Craig’s eyes always fluttered while sharing his healing energy with people.

On the night of Gordon’s workshop, Craig told me that he had come to see if he might have mediumship abilities in addition to healing. When Gordon gave the signal for people to begin, Craig sat with his hands palms up on his knees. This isn’t how most mediums work (most just start talking), but Craig used his healing meditation methods to connect with spirit. It was the best way he knew to clear his conscious thoughts.

Craig’s eyelids fluttered as I watched, and his fingers twitched. He sat like this for a few minutes while I waited and watched. Slowly and quite peacefully, Craig opened his eyes. His fingers immediately stopped twitching. He told me he had linked with a man in spirit. I was skeptical but supportive. Then he began giving me messages.

"The man here has a ruddy complexion. He’s rugged looking. He’s wearing a plaid flannel shirt. I don’t know who he is to you, but he is sitting beside you to your left with a hand on your shoulder," said Craig.

I knew this was probably my father if it were anybody at all. He certainly fit the description, including the plaid flannel shirt. Still, this was vague information so far, so I listened without responding, which was fine since Craig went back into a trance for thirty seconds with more eye fluttering and finger twitching.

When he opened his eyes again, Craig said, "He’s telling me he had a problem with alcoholism. He’s very sad for what that did to you." Now I knew it was my father. This is a message my father had been giving me every time a medium gave me a reading, beginning with the first reading I ever had. I kept telling my father that I forgave him, but my father seemed to be beating himself up about this issue. Either that or it was a useful signal to help me identify the spirit coming through in readings as my father.

"He’s very emotional," said Craig, tearing up as he talked. "I think he died about four or five years ago," he added. At the time of this workshop, that was correct. I was deeply impressed that this newcomer to mediumship was so accurate on his first attempt.

Craig continued, "He is still sitting beside you. I don’t know why, but he is down low to your side." Craig went back into a trance. His eyes fluttered. His fingers twitched. He opened his eyes again: "He has a hand on your shoulder. He tells me he is down low to your side to represent how he looked up to you while he was here. He says the two of you changed roles sometimes. Does that make sense?"

It did make sense. My father suffered from severe depression that led him to self-medicate with alcohol. We often changed roles because of my father’s alcoholism. Sometimes, I had to be an adult even though I was a teenager—my father was drowning in a sea of despair and confusion. Sitting with Craig, I recalled a recurring scene in my family’s dining room.

My father sat crying as he soaked his white t-shirt in tears. He would plead with me to help him, forgive him, and understand that he loved me even when his words or actions hadn’t indicated love. I would hold him for what seemed like hours while he sobbed, me balling along with him. He was lost. I was bewildered. While Mom was working to pay the bills, I played adult, trying to release the pressure of my father’s burdens and fears, comforting him during the darkest stage of his illness—the cry for help. I held an arm around Dad as he dialed one alcohol rehabilitation hospital after another, begging them to admit him one more time. With each refusal, my father’s hope and presence diminished. When someone finally offered to admit him, we both sighed in exhaustion and relief, then rushed him to the hospital to detoxify and rehabilitate.

My father did stop drinking for twelve years before he died at the age of sixty-four. I was proud of him for that accomplishment, which is why it was difficult for me to understand why he tortured himself endlessly in the spirit world with memories of his drinking years. Nonetheless, I knew what Craig was talking about. Dad’s message was loud and clear, and I no longer questioned that Craig had linked with him in spirit.

Quick digression: Today, twenty-three years after this workshop, I now know that my father intended to support my healing caused by this dark time in my youth. People in spirit can forgive themselves for the behavior that caused others pain or suffering, but they are eager to tell us about their regrets so that we can begin our own healing. My father no longer comes through in readings with this regret.

Now, it was my turn to try mediumship. I decided to try Craig’s method and meditate to get started. I closed my eyes and attempted to clear my thoughts. I could hear everyone around me giving messages to their workshop partners. I felt like a log on a stage. My mind was blank as Craig waited patiently for a message from beyond. I wondered how long I should sit there teasing him with anticipation. I felt terrible that Craig got me as a partner.

All I could think about was how well he connected with my father. I thanked my father for coming through so clearly. I contemplated the effect this night might have on Craig, knowing that he would likely become a powerful medium one day. After a minute, I opened my eyes and admitted, "I'm getting nothing. I’m so damn excited how well you did, Craig. Have you ever tried mediumship before?"

Craig didn’t care that I sucked at mediumship. He was too excited about his own performance, which is why he attended the workshop. I explained my research on mediums to Craig and emphasized what I saw as his strengths.

Across the room, Melissa’s workshop partner didn’t do too shabby either. At first, her partner had no success linking with spirit. Melissa thought it might help if she thought of my father, knowing he was a strong communicator from the other side. She wondered if her partner might pick up on Dad’s energy as she thought about him without telling her partner who she was thinking about. It worked. The woman immediately picked up on my father’s energy. This was the exact moment Craig was linking with my father across the room. My father was in two places simultaneously—the same room, different conversations. Being a spirit is so cool!

Melissa’s partner told her she was getting an older man who was old enough to be Melissa’s father, but she knew from an earlier exercise that Melissa’s father was still alive. This confused the woman because the man was too young to be Melissa’s grandfather, but she was getting fatherly energy from him. Since I’d been with Melissa since we were kids, my father loved her as his daughter. A few mediums have told me during my readings that my father always showed Melissa as one of his children, and to my humorous delight, this often confused the mediums when they gave me readings.

Melissa’s partner described my father as having gray hair and a button-down plaid shirt with a collar. She added that my father was smiling and showing himself with his arm around Melissa. She said my father made her feel happy and was joking around with her. This was contrary to the introduction Craig was getting from my father at that exact moment, but another side to my father that often came through in readings.

You can probably imagine our surprise when Melissa and I swapped stories on the ride home from the workshop that night. It was curious that my father came through to both beginner mediums in two completely different moods at the same time. Even more significant, however, was the fact that both of our partners linked with spirit. I expected this to be unlikely for a beginner's workshop.

If I could sum up the benefits of attending this workshop, it opened my eyes to the possibility that we all have access to psychic and mediumistic abilities. While I failed to get any messages for my partners, many attendees got accurate messages in the aura, psychometry, and mediumship exercises.

The other lesson I learned is related to the messages Melissa and I got from my father. Craig said that my father was sad and regretful. Melissa’s partner said he was happy, smiling, and joking with her. This single experience taught me that messages that come through mediums are for the receiver of the message. They are not evidence of the spirit’s overall state of existence.

My father’s spirit held the capacity to be both happy and sad simultaneously, as well as regretful and loving. He showed these emotions to our workshop partners to send a message to each of us. He wanted me to know he regretted how his alcoholism affected me. He wanted Melissa to know he loved her like a daughter. This was a powerful lesson to learn so early in my investigation of the afterlife.

Thanks for reading my article. I’d love to hear if you’ve discovered any abilities in yourself and how you came to discover them. Or let me know if you’ve been to a similar workshop and how that went for you. See you in the comment section.

Love,
Bob

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the reputable directory of psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. His latest venture is Bob Olson Connect, where you can read Bob’s articles before they become books.

Please note in the image below that the website now has 3 menu headings to help you find past articles:

1. Stories with Life Lessons

2. Afterlife & Metaphysics Articles

3. Afterlife TV Episodes 2024