How do you receive your information from the spirit world – by seeing, hearing or sensing? It’s important that you start to recognize these different skills of mediumship before you can develop them further.

Clairvoyance

The word itself only means ‘clear vision’, but its connotations are more mystical and otherworldly. Clairvoyance is the French word the world has been adopted to describe the function of seers, fortune-tellers, mediums and any other visionaries who claim to see through time, the spirit realms or the lives of others.

I believe that everyone has inner visions of some sort. We all have the capacity to make mental images of thoughts and memories, and we all dream.

On your mediumship journey, when you sit in meditation, try to be aware of any images that appear in your mind. Take the time to observe what types of thoughts try to pull your attention away from your quiet practice. Try not to assume that every vision that comes into your mind is a message; it takes time and practice to know the difference. Sometimes your own memory will throw up images and it’s important that you learn to know the difference between your own thinking and any clairvoyance that might happen during your sessions.

I’ve come to learn that real clairvoyance is given when the moment is right. If you get no answer to questions you ask during your meditation, then take that as a no, or that it isn’t time for you to know yet. Sometimes things have to happen in order for a better answer to be given.

Take note of your abilities. If you are clairvoyant, observe how you see the images in your mind. Are they clear and distinct or fuzzy and blurred? Are they in black and white or colour? Clairvoyance isn’t given to you by a spirit guide or guardian – they merely use what’s available to work with. So, if your mind is like a television screen, is yours a small black-and-white one or a large HD colour one, with all the intricate graphics? What do you have to offer? Does your inner screen need to be tuned a little to clear the picture and improve the images?

Clairaudience

This faculty of mediumship works in much the same way as clairvoyance. The clairaudient person hears information or messages from the spirit world or about a person they are reading for. The most famous clairaudient is possibly St Joan of Arc, who claimed to hear what she called her ‘spiritual council’ of St Michael, St Margaret and St Catherine, who guided her to fight to put the true king of France back on the throne in the 1500s.

In more recent times we had a lovely medium in the UK called Doris Stokes who had many books published on her work as a clairaudient medium and filled theatres around the country and in many other parts of the world. Doris would sometimes openly ask the spirit who was working with her to give names and other information that she could use to provide evidence from the spirit world. I liked the fact that she always told people that it was her spirit guide who was the main communicator and who brought the other spirits to her when they needed to give messages to their loved ones. This is something I believe happens when I work this way.

Many mediums report that they hear the voices of spirits passing messages to their loved ones. I receive many messages in this way and find that when I have a very strong connection to the communicating spirit, the faculty of clairaudience becomes more predominant. I recall reading that Doris Stokes felt exactly the same: when she felt a strong presence, the voices got louder and clearer.

I’ve come to learn that a medium who wishes to improve their spiritual gifts should improve themself first, and I’ve tried to make myself the best receiver of spiritual messages I can be. Now when I tune in to a person for a reading or to a group before a demonstration, I open my senses to their full capacity in both worlds and my senses of vision and hearing are waiting to receive as soon as I feel the spirit presence. Which brings us to clairsentience.

Clairsentience

Clairsentience is the ability to sense spirits who are trying to communicate with us. Rather than seeing or hearing them, we feel their presence in the atmosphere around us, using our auric awareness.

Sensing in this manner can be practised in a mediumship circle with our guides or as part of an exercise such as tuning in to another person’s auric energy, which helps us to strengthen our ability to sense subtle messages in the unseen world around us. There are sensitives who only work on the psychic or intuitive level and this means that their sensitivity only extends to people in this world. That is fine if that is to be where your gift works best.

A medium, however, might find that as their ability to sense becomes more acute, they start to feel things like the actual personality of the communicating spirit or the sensations of emotional episodes in their life, both good and bad.

I believe that becoming more sensitive to the emotional and atmospheric activity around us is equally as important as improving our other faculties of mediumship, if not more so.

Mediums will often call themselves clairvoyants and so on. But, for me that only matters after the work is done. I believe that if you develop properly then all the faculties of mediumship can be brought out in you when you work in the power and trust your spirit guide to bring the messages.

Exercise: Using the Three Faculties of Mediumship in an Exercise to Meet Your Spirit Guide

• In your own sacred space, begin by taking your mind into a quiet, meditative state.
• Be aware of the atmosphere around you and notice how still and quiet it is.
• Be aware that your energy isn’t just within your body, but is beaming out into the atmosphere around you. Sense the vibration in your own energy as it expands outwards in all directions from your body.
• Send out a thought to your spirit guide and welcome them into your sacred space.
• Allow your awareness to sense the presence of your guide and whatever signals they wish to send you.
• When you are truly aware of your guide and are satisfied that you are connected, ask if you may receive information about the life they led when last in the physical world.
• Wait to see if it is given. Be aware of anything that comes to you (and also aware that you aren’t forcing it).
• Watch for pictures. This is an indication that your clairvoyance is working.
• It is the same for words or sounds – those are an indication of clairaudience. Are you hearing anything?
• Check your feelings and any sensations around your physical being. Note anything that feels different on both the physical and emotional level.
• When you are satisfied, thank the guide and allow them to move out of your space.
• Bring yourself out of the meditative state slowly and when you feel ready, note down anything that you saw, heard or felt after you asked your guide for information.