Psychic or Medium?

Who Am I?

Let me start by saying that I am a psychic, a medium, a healer, a teacher, and above all, a student.

A psychic is a seer. They can see events that have happened in the past (clairvoyant), see things as they are happening while not physically being at the same place (telepathic), and/or see things that will happen in the future (precognitive). Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) is often passed off as a lucky guess or an intuitive assumption. But, how do we explain the extremely accurate relating of specific facts and minute details when the information about the person, event, or object is or has not been made available?

A medium is a go-between, the conduit for interaction between persons living on this physical plane of existence and those who have died. Many mediums like myself depend on the aid of entities who are fully aware of both sides of the veil. They are often referred to as guides or Guardian Angels. Yes, I speak to dead people. Or, more accurately, they speak to me and, with the help of my Guide, Marie, I translate for them.

I was first identified as a psychic medium in 1975 by Ed and Lorraine Warren, founders of the New England Society for Psychic Research in Monroe, CT (www.warrens.net). At that time, I didn't realize the differences between psychics, mediums, and psychic mediums. John Edward, (http:// johnedward.net/#), defines it this way: "Psychics perceive, mediums receive." I explain it this way: A psychic will walk into a house he has never been in before and tell you where your missing keys are. A medium will walk into the house and tell you who moved them and why. A psychic medium will do both.

A healer helps to make others whole, whether in body, mind, or spirit. A medium can be a healer in that he/she helps to bring awareness and understanding to those involved on both sides, which facilitates their own healing from within. Healing may also come in the form of closure, resolution, acceptance, or departure. Very often what we need for healing is not necessarily what we wanted or expected. How often can we truly say that our wants, expectations, and true needs are in total alignment? Our guides are not bound by the three dimensional confines of this world. They can see past our wants and expectations and thus attend to our true needs.

A teacher shares his acquired knowledge and skills with others in order to help them realize their own understanding. A student realizes that, no matter how much he thinks he has learned, there is infinitely more to learn.

This book chronicles my journey thus far with the learning and understanding that I have acquired along the way. For me personally, it also brings so many of my experiences and lessons together. In doing this, it gives me a clearer vision of the work ahead of me, of which I am called to do. I am a medium, a connector, a healer, the conduit for interaction between persons living on this plane of existence and for those who have died. I speak to dead people and they speak to and through me. I carry the messages of healing for both sides of the veil.

Meeting My Guide

It was in the autumn of 1964. I was eight years old. My younger sister and I were playing in my bedroom of the small apartment we lived in, upstairs from my maternal grandparents.

It must have been early in the evening because the room was dim, though no lights were on yet. While we were playing with our toys on the floor, I suddenly saw a woman appear to my left as if she had just come through the door from my sisters' room. The door was closed and I had not heard the familiar squeak of the old hinges. Yet, there she was. I would estimate that she was in her late 20s or early 30s. She had long dark hair that fell straight down over her shoulders and back. She wore a long bed gown or simple dress that covered her from neck to toe. All of this detail I could clearly see, yet she was entirely pale blue in color and almost transparent.

The woman moved effortlessly, as if floating across the room to the closet door to my right. The whole apparition lasted less than ten seconds, then she passed right through the closed door and she was gone. Even at my young age, I silently questioned whether I had actually seen what I thought I had or if it was my imagination playing games with me. That was, until my sister asked me if I had just seen the woman.

This had been my first conscious psychic experience. Many times after that, I would hear or see objects move and doors open and close in that old house when there was no one near and no other logical explanation such as the wind coming through a window or gravity pulling at something that was perched precariously. Soon I began to realize that I could feel the presence of the woman whenever these events occurred. I could feel her cold yet comforting embrace envelop me as if she was hugging me to protect me from any danger. I felt calm and safe whenever she came to me.

During one of my college art classes I had been given an assignment to "paint something." There is nothing more intimidating on the face of this planet than a blank canvas. As I stared at the white space my hand began to reach for tubes of paint. There was no conscious thought about which colors I was applying to the pallet. Then, just as if someone had gently taken my hand, I began to paint. This was not unlike automatic writing except that I wasn't in a trance. I was clearly conscious of everything that was happening.

Brushstroke after brushstroke, one color after another, my hand was moving faster than I had ever painted before. My hand was frenetically moving all around the canvas as the picture revealed itself. Within only a few hours the painting was complete. It depicted a woman in her late 20s or early 30s. She had long dark hair that fell straight down over her shoulders and back. She wore a long bed gown or simple dress that covered her from neck to toe. She was no longer entirely pale blue in color and almost transparent. She now had substance. You can see a face. Her hand is beckoning you to follow her through a doorway that floats in space and on down the hallway into the light. She is my guide. All I did was hold the brush while she revealed herself to me.

Whenever there is a need and I think about the vision of her, my guide comes to me in order to open a safe passage for contact with others from that plane. She wraps around me. I feel the cold and peaceful calm that is her. I shiver and tremble from the cold but it's not at all uncomfortable. Tears run down my cheeks and yet I am not the least bit sad. Many people have reported that they have felt the ice cold air emanating all around my body during these sessions, even in the most sweltering environments.

Inheritance

Every member of my family on my mother's side has a small scar on the right wrist. When I first saw the scar I asked my mother if I had ever been cut there. She showed me that she also had the scar and explained how my sisters, her mother, and her siblings all had it, too. We were all born with the mark. When my son was born the first thing I looked for was the mark, and there it was.

Recurring birthmarks have been linked to past life traumas. When the mark manifests throughout a family, the bond can manifest in many ways. The telepathic connections among all the members of my family are extremely strong.

When I was born, my family lived in St. Charles, Illinois, just west of Chicago. On two separate occasions, my mother announced to my father, almost to the minute, that her sister had experienced a miscarriage. Her sister lived in Rome, New York, over 700 miles away and my mother had not been informed that her sister was pregnant.

How many times, before the days of caller ID, have you heard a phone ring and knew who it was before you answered it? Is it purely intuition, coincidence, logical inference based on details surrounding the event, or just a lucky guess? The ability to relate specific details that were not revealed prior to or during the event takes perceiving those events out of the realm of a "lucky guess."

One day in 1970, when I was 14, my mother got a phone call. I remember watching her raise the receiver to her ear as if in slow motion. Before she could ask who was calling I fell back against the door frame and gasped, "Oh my God, he's had a stroke!" At that age I'm not sure I even knew what a stroke was. My mother turned to me with a puzzled look and proceeded to answer the call.

About halfway into the conversation her look turned from bewilderment to shock. It was an aunt telling mom that my grandfather, their father, had just suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital. He never came home.

My Babci (Polish for grandmother and pronounced Bahb-she) ruled the roost. She was, without question, the head of the family. My Dzadzu (Polish for grandfather and pronounced Jah-jew) on the other hand, was the nurturer of the family and was dearly loved by everyone. On the day he died, almost to the minute, a shockwave reverberated throughout the family. My younger sister slashed the side of her hand with a razor blade while cutting a plastic mold off of a candle she was making. My older sister became violently ill at the college she was attending 100 miles away. Other events occurred simultaneously among all of my aunts' and uncles' families.

At the wake I stood at the back of the parlor and refused to go up to the coffin. Mom asked me why and I said to her, "That's not him up there. All my memories of him are alive and I don't want to remember him dead." Already, as a young teen, I knew that "he" was gone and all that was left in the casket was a shell.

Family Ties

I entered college in the fall of 1973. One afternoon, while walking back to my dormitory from classes, I was overcome by a feeling that something was wrong at home. The more I walked the stronger the feeling became. It got clearer and clearer in my mind that the problem was within my family and had something to do with my younger sister. In what seemed like only a couple of minutes, I had walked several miles from campus and found myself at the edge of a river under a railroad trestle. (It took over an hour to walk back. This was the first time that I was aware of the time differences that occur during my psychic experiences.)

When I arrived back at my dorm room I immediately phoned home to ask my mother what the problem with my sister was. She confirmed my premonition without revealing any details and assured me that everything was going to be all right. Actually, I believe her exact words were, "Yes, there's a problem with your sister, but don't worry. I'll tell you all about it when you get home this weekend." If you really want to stress out a psychic tell him that his vision is correct but not to worry about it. That's like me telling you not to think about big white Alaskan polar bears for the next hour or two.

Well, my sister survived. She had gotten caught charging long distance phone calls to another number and had to make restitution. I learned that, while I need to pay attention to my feelings and the messages that come with them, I have to let them play out as they will. Getting stressed about something that you have no control over never solves the problem. You only end up with the same problems plus the stress.

Developing Psychic Abilities

I believe that all psychic abilities are innate to our spiritual being. An Olympic weightlifter can hoist 600 pounds over his head. I know that if I were to attempt that I would end up in the hospital or worse, even though we both possess exactly the same bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and nervous system. The weightlifter has worked and exercised his muscles for years on end to develop his abilities. Over the years the muscles I would need to perform that task have atrophied and settled in to perform the tasks that are my routine.

I had an accident that fractured my right elbow. The joint was immobilized for several weeks as the bone began to knit. Afterward, it took weeks of physical therapy and months of exercise to regain the full use of the injured arm. In the same way, the skills and senses that we call paranormal or psychic reside in all of us, but, if not exercised, will also atrophy. They do not die away, however. They are still there, inside all of us. We need to start slowly (don't want to blow a hamstring), and gradually redevelop the skills we were endowed with so many lifetimes ago.

There are two things that are essential to realizing our innate abilities. First, you need to recognize your potential and accept the fact that you possess that potential. Too often we sell ourselves short. I don't know how many times I have heard students say, "I don't know the answer," or "I don't know how to do that," when in fact, they do know but are just afraid to accept their own capabilities. Again, it is the metacognitive recognition of what we know.

Consider the story of the elephant and the stick. When an elephant is very young, the trainers will chain its leg to a large post buried deep in the ground so that the baby elephant can't escape. As the elephant grows, the trainer reduces the size of the chain and the post to simply a piece of rope and a stick. The adult elephant could easily break free and run wild, but years of training have convinced the animal that this is not possible. Therefore, it no longer tries.

When we are children our psychic abilities are strong and unbridled. By the time we are in grade school, society has "taught" our abilities out of us in favor of the status quo.

During a Christmas break from college in 1974, I decided to take a job working at a small restaurant in the Finger Lakes region of New York. As if things weren't getting strange enough, a girlfriend offered to let me stay with her family in the upstairs casket storage room of their family's funeral home. It was close to the town where the restaurant was and her parents said I was welcome to stay for free. How could I refuse?

I had a small folding cot right in the middle of all of the coffins. Although I was awakened a few times by the creeks and groans of the old Victorian house, I never had any unusual experiences there. There really were no spirits haunting the place. After all, by the time the "clients" were brought there, they had already long passed.

That winter I amused myself by practicing some telekinesis. Making small objects move across the table or floor and chandeliers gently sway to music on the radio became fun and games, especially in a funeral home. I was never able to move large or heavy objects, although I am sure that with enough practice I could.

Second, in order to redevelop your psychic skills, you need to determine your purpose. This requires serious self-examination and introspection. When is the last time you sat down and were really honest with yourself? Confucius said that if you choose a job that you love you'll never work a day in your life. How many of us are willing to make the decision to give up what may be an even moderately stable lifestyle for the risk of the unknown by pursuing our heart's passion?

I love to play the drums. My "man cave" is filled with percussion instruments. Playing the drums makes me feel good. I know that if I truly invested my time and energy I could be a better drummer and maybe make some money at. Is it my passion, however? Not really. It's more of a distraction or hobby. My profession for the past 30 or so years has been my art and teaching. My true calling, however, is that of the medium and healer. It has taken me years to accept that fact and direct my life down this path. The more I accept myself, the stronger I become in my abilities.

Powerful Toys

There are a wide variety of tools that psychics use in order to help them clarify their readings. Numerology, tea leaves, I Ching coins, Fu Chu sticks, Runes, bones, gem stones, and magic scrying mirrors all provide a means to divine answers to our questions. I have had my "fortune" told by Tarot readers, palmists, and astrologers, and I have on occasion used a crystal ball or pendulum to focus my attention. While seemingly harmless, divination tools need to be used carefully and with a clear intention of the purpose to which they will be applied. They are not toys or games and can be dangerous when used carelessly.

College is a time when we allow ourselves to open up to new ideas and experiences. Unfortunately, not every encounter was pleasant or had a happy ending. Back at the fraternity house a few of the brothers had decided to have some fun and play with an Ouija Board. The board itself is a rather simple looking piece of decorated wood with the alphabet, numbers 0 through 9, yes, no, and Good Bye printed on it. Originally called a Spirit Board and dating back to as far as 500 BCE, the modern Ouija Board with its heart shaped "planchette," or pointer stylus, became popular as a divination tool in the 1890s and later as a Parker Brother's game in 1966. I came to find out, however, that this seemingly harmless toy could become something entirely different.