Psychic. It’s not 4 letters, but it is often thought of as a dirty word. Words have cultural bias attached to them–and following it like a bad rap sheet, the term ‘psychic’ needs a fresh start.
When we hear the word ‘psychic,’ we are flooded with images of Miss.Cleo, flakey new-agers and swindling con-artists preying on their poor, grieving victims. If a psychic character appears in a TV show, she (its always a kooky woman,) is portrayed making a wacky, zany and often-manipulative cameo. This psychic archetype usually presents wearing a glittery turban on her head, toting a crystal ball and uttering odd and mystical mantras. We learn from a young age: psychics are crack-pots, not to be trusted.
And frankly, in the real world, there are a lot of crack-pot psychics. I have seen psychics that prey on the unquestioning and use fear tactics to squeeze a couple more bucks out of a client. There are straight up fakers. I have witnessed psychics who are more interested in getting their own egoic power-hits and puff up like a cat who ate the canary, than actually serving the highest good of the person coming to them for guidance. I once went to a psychic with a friend in San Francisco who told her she was covered in dark energy and her love life was doomed. For only $50 a week she would light a candle and take this family curse off of her. In reality, my friend was working through a ton of shit at the time and did have a lot of heavy energy around her and was riding a string of terrible dates that were, ‘Lifetime movie’ worthy. But this psychic was using fear tactics to run her business. She was laying on the doom or gloom to gain a buck. She was not explaining to my friend her own energetic part in her fate and giving her practical steps so that she could personally shift her own reality.
This store-front psychic’s approach did not empower, enlighten or help raise consciousness, for my friend.
I once met a well-known and accurate psychic who wanted to give me a psychic reading. He approached me with a true, accurate and specific statement about my father who had crossed over. But he followed his specific ‘hit’ up with a fear-based statement about how much I really needed him to tell me some key information or I would regret it later. No matter how gifted or accurate his psi-talents were, there was no way I would pay for a reading from this man. He proved to me, by his approach, his lack of ethics and exposed his power-hungry motivations. He was attempting to put me in the role of lost seeker worshiping at the foot of the psychic guru. I would never want to open up and become emotionally vulnerable with a man who lacks psychic integrity. Just like in any field of business, there are good psychics and there are bad psychics.
Here’s a newsflash, folks: Psychics are real. They are not unicorns, they exists. And they aren’t (necessarily) crazy. Being psychic is a skill. It is true that some people are born incredibly psychic, the same way some people are born incredibly talented musically, or athletically. But being psychic is also a learned skill. I attended a 3 year-long school where I meditated and trained to become more accurate, specific and consistent with my psychic hits. I watched myself and others learn how to trust the natural imaginative and intuitive abilities that we are all inherently born with. I nudged and woke up this dormant ability that had been sleeping. (And in my case, actually passed out hard, doped up on sleeping pills, snoring and drooling on the pillow. So I was super-surprised when I started receiving incredible validation from practice readings: “How did you know my brother runs an art gallery?” “I DO have an allergy to strawberries.” “Yes, my mother died when I was four.”)
And here’s another shocking piece of information: You are psychic too. Yes, you reading this article. How do I know this? Because if you are human, you are psychic. You can call it “trusting your gut,” or “the still small voice,” but we are all intuitive. I work with NYC businessmen that would never tell their friends out loud where they are getting their information about whom to go into business with and their predictions on different deals. These men are part of a fast and powerful boys club where the big secret they are all keeping is how they know what they know. Yet, some of these men (who mostly find me via their wives sending them my way) are incredibly psychic on their own. You don’t get far in business without a 6th sense. Steve Jobs, Richard Bronson, Donald Trump, Co-Co Chanel, Martha Stewart, Madonna and Oprah are all super intuitive. Or let’s just say it: psychic.
People often whisper to me in conspiratorial tones when they learn what I do for a living. They lean over and urgently hiss: “I always know if someone is going to call me on the phone.” “I seem to always know the next song on the radio.” “I’ve had dreams that have come true!” or even, “I can see spirits too!” They, then, glance around manically to see if anyone has overheard their deep, dark secret.
All of this hush-hush hiding, leads me to believe there is serious trauma and drama on this little “p” word. What’s the big woop?
The interesting part is that the people with the most cynicism (I mean cynical not skeptical-link to read more about that here,) later confess to me that they have personally experienced a psychic experience. I remember one incredibly angry skeptic that later admitted she knew her grandmother would die days before she actually did. One angry cynic, dead-set on arguing with me, later revealed an out-of-body experience where he experienced intense telepathy with loved ones in his family. Why is it that the most angry skeptics are actually some of the most intuitive, spiritual people? Well psychologically, we can categorize this behavior as reaction formation (future blog post coming on this soon). But, Spiritually, I think it is those who feel and remember most the promise of who they actually are, become the most disenchanted and angry at their lack of permission to be it. If we are numbed to our natural psychic whisperings, we aren’t angry we just may be distracted or sleepwalking through life. The anger, to me is a promising spiritual sign that screams to me: “We’ve got a live one!” Because of the intense societal pressure and programming which numbs us to sleep…their anger is incredibly justified.
We have an incredibly amount of cultural pressure to deny our natural spiritual orientation. We are spirits having a human experience. ( And guess what? When you experience yourself as a spirit out of body, you don’t have a mouth, as mouths seem to be part of the whole “body” package.) When I had my out-of-body experience I was shocked to realize the way I was communicating with other spirits was through my mind, or telepathically which is to say, psychically. Psychic communication is our natural language. Social scientists say 90 percent of communication is nonverbal, happening solely through body language. When dogs are at the dark park they can tell immediately which dogs it wants to play with and which ones are dangerous and to be avoided. More than just body language, these dogs are also reading energy cues. Cesar Milan, the well-known dog whisperer, frequently speaks about this energy communication that dogs inherently sense. We are also animals, and are constantly making energetic and psychic assessments, while engaging in energetic conversations throughout the day.
What is most important is that our natural psychic abilities allow us to hear the Soul. Soul speaks to us through metaphor, imagination and feeling. If we deny that we can speak Soul, we have inadvertently cut off our native tongue. When tongue-less, we become spiritually speechless, authentically powerless and targets for becoming controlled and manipulated. When we cannot hear the Soul, we are left in an incredibly vulnerable situation; we then rely on external experts, authorities and guides before trusting our own inherent Soul-knowing. There is a strong reality to the advertising, political and capitalistic powers at be that would like us to remain in this vulnerable and helpless state.
I am not a big conspiracy theorist, but when something reeks this bad…I have to call bullshit.
Did you see the movie, ‘Men Who Stare At Goats,’ with George Clooney and Jeff Bridges? Well, guess what? That movie was based on a true story about when, in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the government spent our tax dollars to form a U.S. Army military battalion trained in using paranormal psi powers like teleknesis and remote viewing to psychically spy on others.
George Clooney’s character is based on retired Special Forces Intel, First Sergeant, Glenn Wheaton. Wheaton was a Green Beret who used remote viewing, or psychic spying, to bring back intelligence grade data using only his mind. This southern gentleman is from the Louisiana Bayou, and considered a respected and caring teacher and member of the community.
Look it up, check it out. (His interview is included in the "Extras" in the home DVD version of the movie.) Do you think the army would invest funds in a psychic spy battalion without some darn good reasons as to why? Our government invested in the training of psi abilities for our national protection and most of us have never heard about it.
Think of the awesomeness that could be created on the planet if, instead of spending energy debating the question: “Are psychic things possible?” we instead, worked together to channel and harness this energy for good and healing on the planet.
When psychic powers are used to impress, cajole or prove–it’s the lowest use of this spiritual skill. Well-respected spiritual teacher, Richard Moss, tells a brilliant story in his book, “The I that is We.” He attended a party that was hosting a psychic who was showing off her skills. She was impressively answering people’s questions by guiding people to specific pages of books in a home that she had never been to previously and delivering, with meaningful answers. As the evening progressed, the psychic began predicting floods and earthquakes and Moss felt that the psychic using fear and gloom to powerfully dominate the room. When it was Moss’s turn to ask a question, he, according to format, asked the question telepathically in his mind so she could channel the answer through automatic writing. Moss asked, “What would be the relevance of what you have been channeling if we were to shift collectively to heart level.” Her response was, “It would not ensue.” When Moss explained, aloud, to everyone at the party what had happened in the communication, the psychic jumped from her chair and shrieked. For the rest of the evening she was extremely disturbed, irrational and embarrassed. This story gets to the heart of the matter: The point of psychic abilities are to assist in evolving us into our true selves– guided by the heart and use our inherently natural tool to help, heal and connect.
I am torn about claiming the ‘P ‘word for myself. I know the reactions people have when I say, “I am psychic.” Yet, I am psychic and, (as my partner pointed out it last night, when I was rambling about this blog post) it is a big part of what I do in my sessions and how I get my spiritual/soul information. It seems sneaky for me to hide that I’m psychic. (There are also tons of stereotypes about what being psychic is and isn’t, which I cover in a video blog here.) But I want to be really clear: being psychic is not the point. It is not the end goal.
The end goal is not even to perform miracles. Both of these are just glorified spiritual magic tricks if we overlook the ‘Why” in the age old question, “Why are we here?” It is not what you are doing, but what energy you are doing it from. The ‘Why’ of the ‘why we are here?’ is to BE LOVE: To be our own unique form and expression of Love on the planet. If you are using psychic powers to get ego-hits by making it all about you, to impress, or to power trip you are seriously missing the point. If there is so much of a wiff of unconscious power-tripping and manipulation, I’m not interested. And in fact, I’m offended. You are making the rest of us look like shit.
We are here to get in our hearts. We are here to serve the Soul. If being psychic is helping you with that mission then, awesome-sauce. If training to be psychic, meditating or whatever you are doing spiritually is taking you off the path of Love, then drop the habit. What the planet needs now is connection, compassion and Love with a capital L. Here’s to that dirty 'P' word!
Image by Kimberly Valencia, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.
