If I’m a psychic medium, does that mean I’m a witch?

Not necessarily, but I am. I label myself as both a psychic medium and a witch. 

Many people are fascinated, and want to know how I got to be these things. I don’t think it was a matter of choice — though I did try very hard not to be them, for a big slice of my life.

‘Are they the same thing?’ someone recently asked. No, they are not. It is perfectly possible, and I think quite common, to be either one and not the other. However, there are also plenty of people who are both. Or, I should say, all three.

Definitions

Psychics / mediums / psychic mediums 

A psychic is someone who apprehends a reality beyond the physical world we all experience. Perhaps they receive communications from plants and animals, beyond what we normally get in our interactions with our pets and our gardens. They might well be able to sense other people’s energy and be affected by it. We’re all more or less intuitive. A psychic is intuitive to a heightened degree. They can also get intimations of things that haven't happened yet. They may have premonitions, or precognisant dreams, or tap into some other method of knowing in advance, such as clairvoyance.

A medium is able to communicate with people in the spirit world, those who have died. Perhaps they can also get messages from such beings as angels and nature spirits. It’s a particular form of being psychic.

A psychic medium (like me) can do both. (I haven’t encountered many others. Those I have met seemed to be more focused on the mediumship.) Lots of people — more than you might think — receive communications from friends and family members who have passed on into the spirit world; a medium is one who can relay such messages for those who don’t get any and would like to. We can communicate with those in spirit even when we have no personal connection. A professional psychic medium (which I am) does this as a service to the public, and receives a fee.

(Is it proper to ask a fee for this kind of work? Some people think not. I’ll tell you a story, a little later on, about how that applies to me.)

Please note, we all have different ways of going about this. Just because one person does it a particular way, doesn't mean that everyone will. For instance, I have known some remarkable clairvoyants (clairvoyant = clear seeing, i.e. beyond physical sight) but I personally am not very clairvoyant, only a little bit. I am rather more clairaudient (clear hearing), but my greatest gifts are clairsentience (using touch to receive my messages, e.g. holding the client's hand) and claircognisance (an inner knowing). 

I usually use Tarot cards, and a large crystal ball, when I do a psychic reading for someone. They are tools which can facilitate the work; however, I can also do it without them. 

We find whatever way works best for us. It's very individual. 

Witches

Witches follow ‘the craft of the wise.’ 

As there are various Christian denominations, so there are different forms of witchcraft, but they do of course have some major things in common.

They have great reverence and care for Nature. I tend to think this is the most important aspect, and I believe many would agree with me. However it's not as if it was all written down in a book of rules and regulations. We rather disparagingly refer to other major religions as 'the book religions'. For ourselves, we prefer to learn from the world of nature, and through wisdom passed on from one witch to others. 

We do sometimes write what we have learned into a personal book (called a 'book of shadows' or a 'grimoire'). This is not so much a set of regulations which must be obeyed, as guidelines to what has worked for the person writing it and might therefore be helpful to others.

Witches also work with energy, in ways that those unfamiliar with them might see as magic. And most people think magic isn’t real; that those who practise it are either deluded or fraudulent!

Personally, I think magic is just science for which we haven’t yet found the scientific explanation. In my lifetime, scientists have discovered many things to be factual which were once considered impossible – for instance that plants communicate. We ‘spooky’ types get quite used to sudden announcements of things we knew to be true all along, from our personal experience of them. We just smile when science finally catches up. 

I’ve been a psychic medium all my life, although I did try to suppress it for a number of years. It’s innate, and refused to stay buried forever. Witchcraft, on the other hand, is something I’ve been practising consciously and purposefully since the early 1990s. By now both these things feel perfectly normal to me, even ordinary. So it surprises me when I notice how many people still have mistaken ideas about these matters — particularly about witchcraft. 

Misconceptions 

Don’t believe too much of what you see onscreen, or read in novels! For one thing, most of us don’t bother to try and look the part. We can wear flowing robes and exotic jewellery, and some of us like to, or like to on particular occasions; however, we don’t actually need to. 

There are more witches in the community than you are likely to know. In their everyday lives, most of them look just like anyone else, no distinguishing marks. No extra fingers or nipples — don’t laugh; in olden times that was believed — and no special way of dressing, either. Like everyone else, we tend to dress for our jobs — whether we are mothers, couriers, office workers, labourers… Witches who wear the traditional pentacle (a five-pointed star, or pentagram, enclosed in a circle) — and I think a lot of us do — will usually have it around their neck, tucked under their clothing, hidden.

I remember going to a concert by Wendy Rule, a wonderful singer -songwriter who is public about being a witch. As the audience arrived, the friend I was sitting with, a psychic and healer with a New Age and Christian background, said to me, 

‘There’s an energy here … I can’t quite place it …’ 

I looked around, and said immediately, 

‘Oh, it’s all the local witches.’ 

I didn’t know any of them, and few of them were dressed in anything magical-looking. It was a cold night; most of us — women, men, and some schoolchildren  — were rugged up in coats and scarves. 

Well of course it was no surprise that Wendy’s audience would consist largely of witches! Only to be expected, really. And my companion was right: there was a collective energy, one which I hadn’t particularly noticed until then, perhaps because it was natural to me.  My friend, a light worker and not a witch, was unaccustomed to it. (I’m a light worker too, in that I consciously and purposefully join with others sending out light for personal and planetary healing. It’s just that I happen to be a witch as well.) 

‘Witches are very earthy,’ I said later – trying to explain this incident, and the difference in the energy, to a couple of other friends who aren’t witches but were familiar with light worker energy. 

It’s true. We like to stay close to the earth, both in our lives and our spiritual practices. 

(‘My church is the forest or beach or river or garden,’ said a facebook friend recently, and I thought, ‘Aha, I had a feeling about you. Now I know!’)

We work with the elements; our sacred objects may include twigs and stones and shells; when possible we like to hold our rituals of worship outdoors.

We tend to feel that, as in nature, there must be a balance of opposing forces; therefore we acknowledge darkness as well as light. Not the darkness of evil, but that which exists in nature: night-time, lit by the mysterious moon rather than the radiant sun; our so-called ‘negative’ emotions such as sorrow, anger and fear, which we need to express in healthy ways rather than try to suppress; the great void from which we all came … 

Are witches evil?

It irritates me when, in novels or TV shows, any local magical or Pagan group turns out to have some dark and sinister agenda: at the very least, preying on the gullible; at worst committing murders. You can pretty much count on it! Tarot readers, too, and mediums, are usually revealed as fraudulent, and sometimes as possessed by evil! 

(In the days when I was teaching Tarot reading, I even had one student who expected me to teach her how to fake it! She just couldn’t get it that this was not what I was about; she seemed to think I was holding out on her. She fairly soon dropped out of the course — and, in doing so, stealing one of my favourite Tarot decks, which I had lent her to practise with for homework. 

All these decades later, I find I’m still upset about that. It was the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is common enough and easy to replace — in fact I have several different editions of it now — but that one had a lovely soft pink backing on the cards, which to me gave the whole pack a very loving, gentle energy. I’ve never come across another the same.)

The truth is that witches, of all people, are very unlikely to be going around doing evil. As I explained in the first, 'What 's This?' post here, we have only one rule that we are required to obey: ‘Do as you will, an it harm none.’ (This ‘an’ is an archaic version of ‘if’ or ‘so long as’.) I think this is the strictest moral code there is, because you have to think about everything you do! It’s also extremely hard to live up to, because we usually can’t see very far ahead to all the possible consequences of our actions. 

In practice, we at least have to stop and think about the effects of any magical work we contemplate, and do the best we can to ensure it won’t be harmful. This is made easier to abide by because we subscribe to ‘the law of three.’ That’s not a law in the sense of a rule we must obey; rather, we regard it as a natural law, something which will naturally happen if the conditions are met: a law of cause and effect. It means that whatever we send out, be it good or ill, it will come back to us multiplied. It’s often called ‘the law of threefold return,’ promising that whatever you send out once will return three times over. 

I personally don’t think it must be threefold exactly, just that it will be even more than what you put out — and yet, I have known at least one case where there were three specific repercussions (close together in time) for a particular piece of active ill-wishing. 

Working magic

Do we lapse as time goes on, or do we become accustomed?

Several of my witchy and/or New Agey friends who have identified as such for a long time have expressed some guilt that they’re ‘not really doing it any more’. I know the feeling.

But when I take a good look, I realise it’s more that my practices have become so routine and accustomed, so everyday, that I forget they are anything special. They are incorporated into my life, like brushing my teeth or feeding the cat.

Daily ritual

For instance, it has become natural and unremarkable to me to start my day, immediately after my morning shower, with a ritual to greet that which we call God (which I like to think of as Goddess) as well as my various guides and guardians.

This has altered over the years, from a very traditional Wiccan or Druidic casting of circle, through the Middle Pillar Exercise beloved of ceremonial magicians, and various tips and suggestions from my teachers and mentors, to a very personal sequence.

With intention, visualisation, words and physical action, I create around myself a sphere of light. I express gratitude to my patron deities* and ‘to all my guides, guardians, friends, well-wishers, lovers and beloveds in any and every realm.’ I also ‘acknowledge all the nature spirits who look after the earth, and all the angels who look after me.' I then recite the Druids' prayer aka Gorsedd prayer (I say it in English) and finish by intoning the 'Awen'.** 

On leaving home

(going out to shop or visit friends or whatever)

I put protection over my little cat, then over my home and its contents, and all living things in the front and back yards. Then, when I get in my car, I call the angels to bear witness that I’ll have ‘safe, easy, uneventful driving … taking me safely with ease and grace, and in perfect timing, everywhere I want and need to be.’ (My own wording, arrived at after trying a few options.)

Going about my days / meeting the unexpected

Being a Reiki practitioner, it’s also natural to me to put my hands on myself or my cat if there are any symptoms of being unwell (as well as seeking appropriate medical help when required). 

I can also clear a space of negative vibes with Reiki, or smudging, or an arrangement of crystals, or calling on a suitable supernatural being.

Often one doesn’t think twice, just starts doing when need arises. It feels no more extraordinary than washing the dishes or the clothes when they need it, or weeding and watering the garden.

Spells

I like to work in the energy of unconditional love as much as possible, and to observe the intention not to do harm, therefore I never do hexing and seldom do banishing spells.

When I do use a banishing spell, my intention is to remove harmful behaviours rather than the person who is committing them — but sometimes that happens too. If it rebounds on me I don’t mind, as I would prefer to have any harmful behaviour on my part removed.

(Rebounding is not necessarily bad. It can be an unexpected blessing, e.g. when I banished some very evil neighbours who were harming everyone in their vicinity, in this case meaning to get rid of the persons, not just their behaviour. They very quickly got moved out of that house — by the police, as it happened (which I had not specified in my working)— and immediately afterwards Andrew and I got moved out of our rental too, as our landlord wanted to occupy it himself. We were actually given the option of moving into the one the criminals had vacated, but we chose another place we were offered, which was much nicer than either that or the one we’d had, and lived there very happily for the next few years.) 

I seldom do spells for good outcomes. I don’t feel the need, as I’m a Reiki Master. I find that what I can do with Reiki is quick, easy and powerful (and often beautiful).

Reiki also works for charging new crystals. and cleansing old ones. It’s even quicker and easier than using running water or leaving them out in the light of the full moon.

If I want the answer to a question, I could do a Tarot or an I Ching reading for myself, and sometimes do if it’s a complex question, but mostly I use a pendulum to get a quick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

Shelter from the storm

One magical worker I was friendly with, now deceased, told me her method for protecting her home during violent storms. She put a dome of whitish-blue light over her property for the duration of the storm.

Not a physical dome, of course, but one made with visualisation, intention and willpower. Her house, on a high hill in the path of many storms coming in from the ocean, always survived undamaged even when some nearby didn’t.

I do my own home, plus those of my neighbours, and any friends I can think of who might be in danger. So far so good! (Coincidence? Ah well, nothing can be proved, of course. But when one builds up a long-lasting track record …)

Notes:

* Patron deity

A patron deity is a god or goddess who takes a special interest in a particular person, group, profession, or place, acting as a guardian, protector, and guide. While historically deities were associated with specific places or crafts (e.g. Thoth for scribes), in many modern contexts, particularly in Paganism, it refers to a personal, deep relationship where the deity has chosen the individual. This relationship is a significant commitment that often extends beyond ritual work into daily life.

** Awen

Awen is a Welsh and Cornish word meaning 'inspiration,' particularly poetic inspiration, but it has a broader meaning of 'flowing spirit' or 'creative force' in Celtic spirituality and Druidry. It represents a creative energy that can flow through all things, connecting the individual to a deep source of creativity, divine inspiration, and the energy of nature.

(Notes supplied by Google AI)

Background: the quick version of how I got to be me

 For more personal and literary details, please view my website. For the magickal/spiritual/healing background, read on:

I was a psychic child who learned to suppress that early, when it became clear that not everyone shared or approved of these experiences.

Eventually, though (when I was in my thirties) they refused to stay suppressed. After fearing I was going mad, I realised I was still functioning in my life, and was doing no harm to myself or anyone else. Maybe I wasn't mad after all. I began allowing myself to experience my extra-sensory perceptions.

In my forties I was mentored — informally, in the course of friendship — by a great magician. (No, I don't of course mean a stage magician.) 'Ridge' was a private, anonymous man, not widely known for his gifts, but they were formidable, and included clairvoyance (since his childhood). After he died, I gradually realised how much he had taught me. He left me some of his books, and I began studying Ceremonial Magick.

I taught myself Tarot partly due to my friend's encouragement, and eventually progressed to being a professional reader and teacher.

Meanwhile I became part of a loose-knit circle of meditation groups known as the Andronicus Foundation. Our purpose was planetary and personal healing, and the attempt to contact Higher Intelligences — in all of which we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. This too was a source of much learning and growth.

I did a personal development course called The Forum, which led to further courses and training with the organisation now known as Landmark Education. I also completed an innovative and dynamic spiritual development course called The Master Game and its post-graduate follow-up, Master Connections (both developed by Jenette Youngman of Melbourne).

I began learning Reiki in 1988 with Rev. Beth Gray. I became a Reiki Master in 1992, training with Ann Adcock in the lineage of Iris Ishikuro. I was fortunate to do my Master training in the old way, intensive and one-on-one, with a very esoteric emphasis. Much was demanded of me before I was deemed ready to receive Mastery (although I was well looked after too, along the way) and the gifts that came with my initiation were proportionate to the demands.

I was invited into another group of meditators, the Sabian Foundation. We too experienced great development, and became specifically involved in flower essences co-created with the Devic kingdom.

Later I explored Shamanism. I was also much drawn to Druidry and became a member of OBOD, though I never progressed beyond the Bardic grade.

I found all these paths powerful, and full of sweetness, truth and beauty. I have certainly not revoked any of them! Each in turn felt like coming home. However, in the course of time I embraced witchcraft. For a long time I had a resistance to it, even when I was getting involved in other forms of magick. (I now realise I have suffered for it in other lives.) One day, quite quietly, it came to me: 'Of course you're a witch. You've always been a witch.' Yes, it was obvious. I realised the truth of it. That was the ultimate homecoming.

It took me longer to identify as Wiccan. I'm a bit anti-religion, in particular 'organised religion'. Yet perhaps I was looking for something I could call mine. When I understood that Wicca has no dogma and only one rule: 'Do as you will so long as it harms none', I became able to adopt it as my primary spiritual path and ethical code.

After much study and practice I was guided to self-initiate as a witch. Later I had a hankering for something more formal, so I studied Correllian Wicca for some years, in their online WitchSchool, progressing to Second Degree. But I never sat their final exam for that degree. Every time I tried to go to a new level in the Correllian tradition, bizarre things would happen – the site would be hacked and records lost, or my tutors suddenly leave the organisation. I sorted it with great difficulty after First Degree; didn’t bother next time. Evidently I am not meant to identify specifically with the Correllian path. Yet I have the greatest respect for their teachings, some of which I think you will not find anywhere else, and found the members of the tradition very helpful and understanding. I highly recommend them.

I now identify as a contemporary eclectic Pagan witch, meaning that I don't restrict myself to any one tradition but embrace aspects of many. (I also mix pantheons, i.e. I relate to deities from several cultures: Celtic, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Hindu ...)

I learned Qabala from a local teacher, in the alchemical tradition of Frater Albertus.  (I don't think the course I did bears much resemblance to whatever they're teaching in Hollywood — though of course I have no real knowledge of the Hollywood version.) As with Reiki, I had to promise my teacher to pass it on in the way I had learned it, without alteration. It has a magickal rather than religious emphasis.

I am now trained in many spiritual and energy healing modalities, have developed my psychic work to include mediumship, and have been High Priestess of a contemporary, eclectic coven called Star Circle.

Besides all the above, much of what I have learned has come directly from Spirit.

As well as my wonderful personal guides and guardians, I have at various times worked with faeries, angels and dragons.

I also work a lot with crystals. I have done courses in crystal healing, but work best intuitively.

*****************************************

(Sometimes it's fun to confirm what you already know. Some test results I received online):

Thank you for your interest in the Institute of Psychic Development. Your psi-q test results as requested are as follows.


You scored highest in Channeling.

One who communicates with spirits is called a channeller or medium. Channelling is the ability to communicate with those who once lived or with spirit who have never taken a human form such as angelic beings. Channelling is the communication that takes place between a spirit and a living human. There are several forms of spirit communication and a channeller does not have to be in a trance state to receive messages. However, with regard to the quality of channelled information it is reliant on the channeller rather than the spirit. This is because the information has to be passed in an energy form for interpretation from the channeller. If the channeller has not learnt the skill adequately the information can seem vague and jumbled.

Channeling can be a learned skill. As you learn though, it is important to remember that everyone has a different experience of what it is like to channel. Your style will depend on your spirit guide and your particular energy level, focus, and clarity. Before consciously channelling it is a good idea to learn the skills of quietening the mind. This is to ensure the quality of information you receive. Many people however, experience 'unconscious' channelling, a random act of communication with a loved one who has passed over. This means a person has the ability to successfully channel but has not yet developed it.


Your next highest score was for Precognition.

While clairvoyance and telepathy have to do with perceiving events across distance, precognition focuses on the ability to 'see' events across time. Specifically future events. Precognition is often, for a lot of people, totally unexpected and not asked for. It is the ability to see the future. It is usually experienced in a variety of ways; among the most common are through feelings, brief inner glimpses, dreams and the third eye (the mind's eye). For some, especially if not understood, this ability can be disconcerting until the gift is properly managed. This can be done through reading, experiencing and understanding psychic ability.

What's this?

I’m writing the first draft of my memoir about magical and psychic aspects of my long life. As I do so, I keep getting the urge to share various things I do in that line: habits I have formed after living through all the developments described in my memoir. 

They might make a companion volume to that memoir some day; but for now, this blog will serve to get them out of my head and onto the record.

Perhaps the things I do will be helpful, or at least interesting, to others. I think they are fairly idiosyncratic, but I’ve arrived at them over many years, having explored along the way more traditional modes of witchcraft, ceremonial magic and Druidry, along with New Agey stuff, spiritual / energy healing, and light-working; also spending 37 years (so far) as a Tarot reader and professional psychic medium. 

I’m not thinking to be very organised about this. It will be ad hoc: whatever comes to mind at any time.

These things won’t make a nice, reputable, classic ‘how to’ manual for doing magic or being psychic. But they could work for you if you feel like giving them a try. I can only say, they work for me.

Disclaimer: Important Safeguards

Having just said that this is not a manual and not traditional, I do have to start by putting in place some obligatory warnings, necessary for anyone working with metaphysical energy.

1. What you put out tends to come back to you, multiplied. That’s the basis of what witches call the threefold law, rule of threefold return, or rule of three: the idea that everything you put into the universe by magical means will rebound on you three times as much.

Witches have only one ethical rule (similar the Hippocratic Oath which doctors make): ‘Do as you will so long as it harms none.’ That’s a very stringent rule, as we must examine each case on its own merits – and also  impossible: how can we see ahead to all the possible consequences of our actions? We can only do the best we can. 

That difficulty doesn’t absolve us, however. Therefore it’s important to add to every magical working the rider: 

According to free will, for the good of all and harm to none.

I would not dream of doing magic without this proviso. I can tell you from experience that things do rebound. Only a fool would neglect this safeguard, which applies to oneself and all others who may be involved.

(Most magical practitioners then add, ‘So shall it be,’ or in older language,’So mote it be’ – which is also the meaning of ‘Amen’.)

2. To avoid accidentally inviting or attracting something harmful into your space, make sure you always work in the energy of unconditional love. The strength of that will repel anything which is not of the same energy. Stay tuned; later on I’ll tell you how to ensure that you work in this energy.