MEDIUMSHIP INSIGHTS: Techniques, Limitations, and Best Practices with Kat B

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you.

Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hey there. Today's episode is with my good friend Kat Bailey. I've known Kat for a couple of years now and She is a medium, hypnotherapist, a sound therapist, a cognitive behavioral therapist. And I'm not sure what else she does, pretty much everything. She's a great medium. And I want to talk to her today about mediumship and the nature of mediumship, what it is and what it isn't, actually. Kat and I, I was having a discussion with someone, I talked about imagination and mediumship and Kat and her spirit team took a little bit of an exception to that. So we wanted to have this conversation.

Hope you enjoy it, and I hope you get something out of it. Hey everybody, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief to Growth. And today I've got with me my good friend and famous medium Kat Bailey, Kat Bailey, medium Kat Bailey. Kat is an amazing medium. She's got a really interesting background. She's also hypnotherapist. Cognitive behavioral therapy, sound healing. Kat's kind of into many, many different modalities, which we're probably going to come back another time and talk about. And we'll talk about Kat's fascinating life. But today we're going to talk about mediumship— what it is, what it isn't, how it works. I had made a video about mediumship, and Kat saw it and had some things she wanted to say, so I brought her in. We're gonna have a conversation today about you know, again, what mediumship is, how it works, how it doesn't work, and why you may see what you do see in mediumship. So with that long introduction, I want to say welcome to Kat.

Welcome everybody, it's lovely to be here today. It's lovely to be debating with my good friend as well. And Brian and I have many, many talks on all sorts of different things, and we love to debate things. We don't always pretend to have all the answers, but we come up with some very interesting facts as we sort of challenge each other to kind of understand more, really. So we came here to talk about mediumship. Brian and I were having a debate over the word imagination. It started about imagination because sometimes when we're utilizing mediumship, it feels as if you're accessing your imagination. It feels like you're moving images, and sometimes you are. But I was saying to Brian that the main— I suppose we should start with kind of the purpose of mediumship and kind of what mediumship means. I have a strong belief that mediumship is a natural faculty of the human psyche and sense. I don't think a medium is different, special. They might be talented, just like somebody can be a talented artist or a talented musician, but I think they— the good mediums originate from a place of healing and just natural intuition or inspiration and that divine force, that life force, that prana, that universal consciousness, whatever you want to call it. If it was discovered today, I think it's simply love, unconditional love. That element and spark that's within each and every one of us is that one thing that we all have in common. And I believe that I'm not designed differently to you. We might look differently, we might have different gifts or skill bases, but we've got a similar makeup. And it didn't make sense to me when people started saying, oh, medium's different, they give did the special. I don't buy that, Brian. I think that it's like learning to read or write. When you started to learn to sort of do numbers, you maybe counted from 1 to 3, you maybe could count backwards 3 to 1, then you could become— you can divide, you can subtract, you can add. Basically, that the psychic faculty is the same. It can be developed. And there was one stage where we couldn't do our 1, 2, 3s, we couldn't say our ABCs, and now we can. We can do it backwards, we can subtract, abstracted and all those kind of things. So I really, I'm really quite a strong believer that it's a natural faculty that for whatever reason we've not activated. And maybe we've not activated it out of fear. Now in the UK we've got a bit of a different history to the global sort of sight on this, in that we had lots of witch hunts in our day and murders. People would try to be a witch and then say if they drowned they were a witch, and if they survived they were a witch. You couldn't really win. So I think historically there's a lot of fear around what is mediumship, a lot of misunderstanding, which is what we're here to clear up today. Biggest sort of impression— I think you agree with me on this one— is that it is a natural faculty. Now, that said, my journey, as you know, didn't start like that. I did have some intuition as a young child. I did have a few unusual moments, mainly through synchronicities and coincidences. But there's one particular time I can recall around the age of 13 where I woke up one day to see a woman what I thought was a vision of a woman in armor stood over my bed with a sword above her head. I suddenly took twice to think, what the hell is that? But she wasn't— the weird thing is my house was a very modern house. It wasn't as if it was a haunted house or, you know, any of the kind of stereotypes that you get about old-fashioned houses. And in a blink of an eye, that scene went. But years later, that would come up in a reading that I had, and it was quite quite an interesting one. So there was me thinking, was it a fraction of my imagination? But then somebody else validates it and says, once when you were 13, you had this vision. And so I suppose it says the seed of curiosity. And then I saw the two big things that kind of led me to mediumship that could be the same for any of our audience today is one, an accident, the automatic opening of the psychic and mediumistic faculty through a diving accident. So a near-death experience. I experienced, you know, in the water, and that moment where I thought I was going to die, that the silent peace that everybody talks about, I experienced. I saw the wave of energy coming towards me, and what really amazed me is that it responded to what I said. Now, at the time that this happened to me, this diving accident, I'd waited 8 to 9 years to get engaged and married to the love of my life, Stuart, and I took a long time to get him down the aisle, you see, and I was really keen to get married. So this moment in the water was kind of a bit petrifying for me because I was like, are you kidding me? I've waited 8 to 9 years to get engaged. I finally got him to succumb, and now you're gonna take me over? You're gonna take me to the other side? And I was like, please, please, please. I just really wanted to get married, and that was the moment that sort of started it. And then, though I'm not religious— it's really interesting, I'm not religious now because I work with so many different people from different religions, but I love all religions, and I'm interested in all kind of faiths and cultures. I'm just interested in the human race in general. But I had this moment where I was brought up in a Church of England school when I was in primary school, so quite a long time ago, and But I said the Lord's Prayer. I did know the Lord's Prayer. And in that moment I said, I said, thank you. If you're going to take me, I just want to say I've had a really great life and I've really enjoyed it. My only issue is I'd love to stay for a little bit more, but if you are going to take me, then I want to go in prayer. And I said the Lord's Prayer, and at that exact moment the wave of energy pulled back and retracted. And that's when I was suddenly like, holy sugar, there's something in the water with me. There's something here. And it felt like I was being watched, Brian. I couldn't see anybody. I couldn't see a physical person. It was just an energy that pulled back. But it was that moment that sort of triggered a few things for me. Now, prior to this accident, my grandfather, who was very, very close to me— he was probably closer to me than my father. I love my father dearly. My grandfather was particularly special, and we had a very special bond together. And I guess the journey that starts any kind of mediumistic inquiry to a certain degree. And if you're not a scientist, that is, who's studying it, is this idea that consciousness lives on. And I, my love for my grandfather and his for mine had a sort of bond that was going to, if there was an afterlife, was gonna, was gonna bridge across that kind of fold or that veil, if you like. So my first entry into mediumship was actually with the passing of my grandfather. He appeared, and I think this is quite unique be useful for the listeners, especially if you've had a recent grief or bereavement, is that the night before we buried my grandpa— the last time I saw my grandfather, actually, 6 weeks before he died, he's— it's the only time I've ever seen him cry. And he said, 'You won't see me again. You're not going to see me again alive.' And he burst out crying. And I said, 'Don't be so ridiculous and silly, Grandad. See you in 6 weeks. I'll come back from university a day early. I absolutely promise you, you will see me again.' And he said, 'I won't. I won't see you in the physical.' And I And I said, well, I tell you what, if there is an afterlife, you better come and find me. And that was kind of the last comment I made. And I started laughing, changed the subject, gave him a hug, sat on his knee, and just said, don't be such a silly old fool, I still love you. And ironically, I did come back a day early from university, and he passed the afternoon of the day before very comfortably, sipping a cup of tea. He just literally lifted the cup of tea to his lips and put it down on the side and passed in his chair very, very quickly from a heart attack. Now, the day that we— the night before we were going to bury him, my mum had a really weird experience. She was sleeping in the room behind the master room, and she was the daughter-in-law. It wasn't her father that we were burying, it was her father-in-law. And she could hear— well, first of all, she saw lights, like orbs of lights in the bedroom, and she could hear my grandma talking to what she thought was my grandfather. And so she thought she was dreaming. She opened her eyes and she could still hear the voices and the lights actually got brighter, at which point my mum was quite nervous, held on to the bed, closed her eyes and just wished for it to go away. And she probably would have just not thought twice about it until my grandma in the morning, who was ironically on the first stage of Alzheimer's— another reason that my mum wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't experienced it herself— said, did you see the lights, Joan? Because granddad came back last night to say not to worry about the funeral today. What we're burying is the shell and the soul lives on. And so this concept of mediumship for me originated out of this. What do you mean the soul lives on? And that was the sort of seed that was sown. I think Grandad was very clever actually in the way that he did it. And I was— the other kind of frustration, being a 20-something who adored and idolized her grandfather, was like, what do you mean he came back to visit you too and he didn't come back to visit me? I was the one that said if there's an afterlife, he better come find me. He doesn't come to see me. And so, you know, that naivety of something you love, just loved grandfather, and it kind of came back to bite me in the bottom 11 years later. So my first instance of mediumship—

All right, little technical issue, but we're back. Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up. So you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started. Started it, the community that showed up, people who are doing exactly what you're doing, listening, learning, trying to find their footing, readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become, a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grieftogrowth.com/substack. That's grief2growth.com/substack, or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth.

I hope to see you there.

Okay, so, so yeah, so this, so the seed, this idea that my grandfather had come back to visit my grandma and my mother and say that what we were burying was the shell and the soul lives on was really the seed that sort of got my curiosity, if you like. And I was kind of like, well, if there is an afterlife, is, is he there? Am I going to experience them? And my mum wouldn't take me to see mediums at the time. She was aware of them. My sister had actually had an amazing experience having lost a child in miscarriage with a medium. And I guess that, that link saved my life actually when I did start having my awareness. And so for me, although I'd had sort of intuitive moments and I'd had some experiences. I didn't— I always believed that my grandfather would be with me, but I didn't have any evidence of that. And then— and I think that's the difference with mediumship, or this kind of wish or want or hope that there's something there. You have to have evidence. And I was very fortunate that as the psychic— as the psychic faculty opened in this diving accident, or was triggered by this accident, this fear, or this meeting with the energy that came to greet me, whatever that was, and it would then spur a load of synchronicities and signs that would lead me actually, first of all, to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and to learn how to deal with that holistically. I went for a series of massages, not something that I would normally do, and on the last one, the guy that was actually treating me failed to His car broke down, and so they were asked— they asked me, did I want to wait 3 months or did I want to see the locum? And I decided that they'd done so much work in terms of relaxing the body, it seems a shame not to complete the cycle. And that— those kind of synchronicities then led me to meet a guy who was a healer, and it was his awareness of my diving accident and, and to tell me that there was a blockage in the, in the lower back that sort of really sort of then triggered this opening of the mediumship faculty. And when it started with me, Brian, it really started with something that I find quite challenging still to talk about, and that was the angelic realm. So I wasn't religious at the time, I'm not now, but suddenly I see a TV screen almost open out in front of me. It's 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, but I'm wide awake, I'm not dreaming. It felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open, and I see I think it's two Roman soldiers with a white Bedouin tent in the background discussing a battle. And as I call out the name, wondering who this person is, that suddenly I hear the words, 'No, not Gabrielle, Michael. My name is Michael, M-I-C-H-A-E-L. I've come to cut the cord.' And I was like, 'Oh no, my dreams just answered back. What the hell's going on?' And then I have to be honest, I was really scared. Because dreams don't answer back. And I think this ties in with our conversation about imagination. How can a dream answer back? It wasn't my consciousness. In a dream, you're putting the images there, aren't you? You're putting the thoughts, you're— or it's playing out like a video. But when you interact with it, like in lucid dreaming, you've got some level of control with it because you're able to morph the images or change it into the sort of scenery or the image that you want, daydreaming, whatever you want to call it. But in this instance, this was not a thought process that was coming from me. It was not an image from— and it was followed by a physical feeling. I got burning in the stomach. I bent over, I fell to the floor. I actually crawled on my hands and knees into the lounge. My stomach was so painful. And the only thing that would release that was like yoga, actually doing Sun Salutations in the front room, trying to release the energy of what felt like a burning You know, I didn't know if I was coming down with something, that kind of thing. And so I guess in that opening moment, that was my first experience of clairvoyance, seeing this opening almost like a screen in front of me in my mind, projected, and yet it interacted with me and it answered back. And then that following, and it was followed by clairaudience, that hearing spirit. Now, clairaudience is— can be two things. It can be outside clear audience. You can get objective clear audience outside of the body. Very rare because spirit have to use the energy in a room. You know, we've seen— we've seen EVPs. We've interviewed Sherry Pearl on EVPs. She morphs or makes a piece of sound that spirit manipulates. So it takes a lot of energy to speak outside of the body. So yeah, objective clear audience, and I've only heard that once or twice. And the majority of the clear audience I get is like a stream of consciousness. It's like talking in my thoughts. It's like when you go to the supermarket and somebody forgets, you know, you've got a list of things to buy and maybe apples was on there, and you've got to the till and you've got to put apple, you forgot to buy the apples, and suddenly your mind says, oh, you forgot about the apples, and you go back. So it's almost like a stream of consciousness, this clear audience. You can, however, get external objective clear audience, which might be And because clairaudience isn't just words, it can be sounds. So when you're in a house— so for instance, I was at a house at the weekend that's known for activity, and it's a 12th-century house in Chester, and more than one person has heard footsteps coming down the stairs. So it's that the sound is witnessed by more than one person, so it's not inside the body.

Yeah, let's, let's talk about it. I want to make that clear for people that are listening, because I think people have a misunderstanding about how mediumship usually works. And first, I want to say usually because you and I talked about this— mediums get things differently. Every medium is different, everybody's experience is different. So I don't want to speak for everybody. So some people will hear, as we call it, objectively, or outside the body. So as you said, that's like if I heard a car door slam outside, it comes in through my ear, everybody in the room can hear it. And then there's subjective, or internal, which is the way people say clairaudience, but it's actually in their head, like their own voice. Is that right?

Yeah, it feels like that. Sometimes it's not your own voice. There's an interesting one. And I don't— again, I can only speak for myself, not other people. But I, when this started, and I said, I said to the healer who'd, who had triggered this reaction in me, I said, who that— who is Michael? And he said, ask him. I said, what do you mean, ask him? He said, ask him in your head who he is.

Right.

And when he shouted his name, it was very much a male-sounding voice, very strong male voice. Now, when I asked, who's Michael? In my head, a woman's voice answered. So you can detect on occasion, not always, sometimes it feels like it's your mind or your voice talking to you. Sometimes it isn't Brian D Smith. Sometimes it sounds like a male voice or a female voice, and the tone of the voice will be different. You can even occasionally detect an accent. Not always, but sometimes if they're wanting to have a joke with you and they're wanting to put some of their personality in it, and you're aware of the dialect, you might, you might get a feel, a feel for it. That's tapping into clairsentience.

Yeah, well, it's like when I, when I read a text from you, I know your voice, so I hear it in your voice when I I read PMH Atwater's books now that I've read her, I hear them in her voice, but it's still, it's still in my head, right? It's still her voice.

Maybe that's it, actually. Maybe it's just our psyche is, our psyche is, is broad, isn't it? Um, but here's the thing, we've, in, in life, in normal everyday life, we very rarely just use one sense. And this is what I explained to my circle that I teach on a Monday, is often we're using more than one sense. If I see an image, as in see it an image internally, clairvoyantly. So I see a picture. In order to understand the context of that picture, I then feel it. Oh, why are they showing me a ski slope? Oh, that's weird, they're not a skier or snowboarder. Feel forward to their parents. Oh, they're not either. Why are they showing me a ski slope? Well, kind of put that on hold and keep going with the information that does fit until I understand the context of it. So I'm feeling and feeling and feeling. And then eventually it's like, ah, aha moment. It's not a ski holiday that they've been on. They're trying to talk about Switzerland, a ski holiday that I've been on.

And that's the point I want to ask. I want to bring out also is what you just said, because again, I think people think that for a medium, and again, different for everybody, that your loved one comes in and says, I was a world champion skier, I won the winter 1976 Olympics. It's not like that. It's more like You get a feeling of skiing, you get a feeling of ski slope. You might, you might get a picture of Switzerland on the map. You know, it's kind of like almost like a game of charades for, I think, for a lot of mediums.

I often describe it as the best game of charades you're ever gonna play.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's like that for everyone, Brian, because—

no, it's not.

Yeah, I've taught me, see spirit as physically as you and I, and they hear their voices just like you. And so I've never experienced that. I've only seen my guide once in the physical, and and he didn't speak. I just knew. I don't know if it was telepathically, but everything, the way that the love that enveloped him, the way that he looked at me, I just knew I'd known him for eons. I just, whoever he was, I just adored him.

Right.

And I knew that he felt the same way about me, but there were no words. It was all said in a smile. It was all said in the gesture. Yeah. I saw him as physically as you and I. Um, I didn't hear his voice, right? I didn't see his eyes.

Um, I wanted to, I wanted to talk about, because it was interesting, because you and I, like you said with the beginning, we start off talking about imagination, right? So what I was saying is I was talking to a medium, and I talked to several who said it's kind of like your imagination. Not that it is your imagination, it's kind of like your imagination. It's the best way they used to describe it. And then after you and I had that conversation, I ran across this quote from PMA Atwater, which I want to read. What she says is, the difference between imagination versus imaginal— the differences between the two is important for us to know. Imagination is intentional fabrication where we make it up from around, from around mind's feelings and preferences. Imaginal is what is presented to us intact from within a world that is as real as we see, touch, hear, feel, smell, and know intellectually. Imaginal realms exist beyond the three-dimensional world where things are real in the sense that they're not being imagined by our own liking or benefit. Imaginal imagery has integrity that exists apart from what we create or control. So that is the difference between imagination and imagining.

I love that quote. Yeah, because it can— because I don't think it is your imagination. I think sometimes you, you put an image out there, so you might say see, you know, I might say what eye color you are, and I see my eye color first, and so I project my eye color, and then they change it and they morph it. So last night I was reading someone, I said, oh, I can see blue eyes like my own, but now he's changed it to green, so I know that his eye color is green. And so I agree with that. I think the imagination is a great tool of the psyche, but it's only one of many tools of the psyche.

Well, I think the reason for this is important, okay, because for most of us, I had never heard the word imaginal until I read that quote. No, so when a medium says it's kind of like your imagination, which is, again, what I've heard them say, and they're like, well, I know it's real when I get validation. And I've done some mediumship development, I've done some with you, and you'll ask me to picture a loved one and I picture them, but it's just like if I just make it up. But the difference is there is an imaginal realm, and a couple times I've gotten, I've gotten it right, you know. So that's the difference, is that validation that it's actually a separate existence. So Like right now, I can imagine I'm running outside, right? But that's not really happening. But I can also imagine that Shane is sitting here saying something to me, and that could really be happening.

Yeah, I think that's it. You become more disparaging the more experience you get, right? So you've got to discern energy at the start. So, um, so I guess if we, if we, if we sort of say mediumship is, um, a mediumship is consciously aware and they're expanding their senses. So I don't believe that those senses are extra, extra sensory, though I hear ESP banded around a lot, or ESP banded around a lot. And I think they're their expansion of our normal senses. So, you know, clear, we're seeing with our physical eye, but when we're seeing internally, we're seeing with our, our, our pineal gland, we're seeing with our third eye, we're seeing internally. So we're seeing images, and we might see videos playing. We might see them in black and white, we might see them in color, and they might be still life pictures, they might be moving videos, the videos of our mind. So, you know, in the same with clear audience, we've talked about it can be internal, it can be external. Clear sentience, feeling, I mean, very powerful tool. So you see the image but you feel it, Same with clairvoyance and clairaudience. If you, if you see thunder, but then you hear— sorry, if you see lightning and then you hear thunder, you— the feeling of that thunder is more intense. And it is when you experience it, the mind— actually, from a hypnotherapy point of view, the brain doesn't know the difference between real or imagined. That's proven fact. There are scripts in place that we use as clinical hypnotherapists where we can imagine eating a lemon or tasting a lemon and and the body will respond by releasing saliva into the mouth. So it's a bit similar with mediumship in that it feels really real. And the more that you can discern energy, or more that you can understand your senses— and let me be clear, there's clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, clairsalience, clairsmelling, clairgustance, clairtasting, clear tangency— so we've got touch, we've got clear empathy when we empathize for somebody, we emotionally feel for them. But we can also get, as mediums, physical feeling. And that's not just within the realm— I know we've talked about mental mediumship, physical medium, and trance, which I'll come to in a moment.

Yeah.

But in terms of— we just start with mental mediumship, this idea that we're in our waking state and we're having this communication with another realm or another dimension or a feeling or source that's blending and harmonizing with us, which is really where the word medium comes from. It's this idea that The energy is— your consciousness is blending with the consciousness of your loved one. It's very hard. I don't like the word energy when I'm saying that because people can get very upset that, what do you mean my loved one's an energy source? What, you know, a physical person? I believe that they're in the subtle energy and that they are a live person in the same way, but they haven't got a physical body, so they have to use mine in order to project the communication. And so they harmonize and blend with my energy. And then they're able to project the visions through my eyes, the sounds through my ears, the tastes, the smells, the feelings, the touch. But sometimes I'll get physical feeling, and this is why I was saying I don't think that this is where I disagreed on the imagination bit. Because, so for instance, the other night I was reading for somebody and I got violent burning in the chest, and then suddenly I felt I couldn't breathe and I was gasping I was actually physically gasping for breath. And then I would— my hand went to my lower stomach and I felt the pain in my stomach. And I said, so I know that there are two conditions here because I can feel that I'm, I'm tired, I'm short of breath, I've got a pain in my chest, but there's also a pain in my stomach because there's a sharp stabbing pain now in the right-hand side of my body. Would you understand two conditions linked with the passing but actually it could be that they didn't pass with either. These are just two ailments that they've had prior to the passing. So you get better at discerning the feelings or the images, and a medium doesn't always know how they're working, especially at the beginning. And even when they get more attuned to it and more aware of how they work, and spirit will, will change it up. Every reading is different, every reading is individual, so you never really know how the spirit's going to communicate. You have to bear in mind that it's a 3-way communication. It's you, me, and the spirit world if you're my sitter. And I can only— I'm using your energy, whether you're aware of it or not, at the same time as the spirit energy. And so if there's fear present and you block my reading, or you are frightened or nervous, or you, you know, skeptical is great, but if you're cynical and you don't want to believe, you won't believe. Spirit world will halt it because they don't want to frighten you. So they're not going to project something that you don't want in your life. They give you free choice. And equally, when I go to that spirit person, I notice a very distinct difference, Brian D Smith, to somebody that I've read for before, to somebody that I'm reading for, for the first time, or it's the first time they've ever worked with a medium on the at other times. They've got my guide and I can hear them interacting with my guide. There was a brilliant one the other day, actually, a doctor that was coming through, and I could hear him talking to my guide and he was talking about, how do I get this mannerism through? I always do this. And then next minute my hands went into this gesture and I'm like, oh, he wants me to lean forward and he wants me to do this. When he talks, he must always talk like this because he wants to tap my hands as I talk and lean forward and lean like this. And that's beautiful. It's almost more evidential than anything I say, if you will, because it's a mannerism, something that I can't know easily or find, and it's unique to the essence of that soul, that spirit. But what I realize is it could be the first time that they're working or interacting with somebody. And if I read for somebody, this set, and I'm reading for the same person, so say for instance a year after my first reading, the same parents or person, you know, husband, wife, whoever it is, comes for the reading and wants to connect to the same person, what I tend to find is the reading is easier for a couple of reasons. One, I'm more relaxed So I'm happier, they know how I work, they're comfortable, they've come back again so they've obviously enjoyed the first reading. Yay! We're on a good, we're on a good place already. Secondly, their loved one's worked with me before so I feel comfortable with their interaction. They've got a little bit of an idea of how I work. They might have watched me or studied me do more readings since their reading because they knew they were coming back for more. And therefore I get the mannerisms or the sense or the essence of them a lot quicker. And I find that they broaden the communication in the second meeting, actually. And you get— the mannerisms get broader. And there's one particular guy that I'm thinking of that I love reading for, and every time I read for him, it's almost like— I always call him— he always goes one up. It's like I can't keep— he's too fast for me. He's like, goes one stage ahead. He pushes the boundaries and stretches my mediumship. Love working with him because I never know what to expect. Yeah. And, and that's how we sort of evolve and learn. And, and so I'd say as well there, Brian D Smith, that mediumship is an evolving process. You know, when I first started training, I had my aura taken. It was just a little ball of light here, and it expands out. You know, 2 years ago I had it taken again in India, and it's this big ball of light with just these rims of pale green or blue around the outside of the edge. And what I realized that is Because I know one of your questions for me was, you know, why, why does the level of mediumship differ between people? And why do, you know, why can't they just sit there? Why can't I just sit there and say I've got the Formula One racer and he won the Grand Prix in 2012 and his best mates are XY? Why can't I just talk and have a conversation like you and I are having? Well, they haven't got a physical body to have that conversation through. They're utilizing mine. And, and so self-doubt, because you're wondering, you have to discern which are you which are the spirit world's thoughts as well, because your critical mind can interfere in mental mediumship. And also this light, you know, this aura, this light that we're expanding or working on as we become more spiritual, we create a better canvas for the spirit world to impress on. So I know when I had my real divinity moment and I really felt this in the spirit, the angels, and maybe even God, I heard this lady's voice say 'You know, all you have to do is reflect back my light.' And she showed me this beautiful piece of water, a river with this light reflecting on it. 'All you have to do is shine back my light.' And, and doesn't light look beautiful when it reflects on water? And that for me always stayed with me, this idea that the cleaner my aura, the cleaner my water. Because we are, let's face it, as a human race, 60 to 70% made of water. If I'm clean of emotions, if I'm clean of, you know, if I've developed my spirituality, if I've worked on myself, because as a medium you find that all your issues come to the surface first. You have to scoop them off, clear them away. It can be quite an emotional rollercoaster getting to that clean space where you become less judgmental or non-judgmental and you focus on unconditional love. You want that clean canvas to imprint on. And so even now I see a massive difference in my readings 2 years ago to now, and I'm sure in 2 years' time they'll be even better than they are today. So it's an evolving process, and I think experience is one thing, Brian D Smith, and the second thing is you've got to get past your human self, and that's an evolving process, and it can interfere. So it's not that we mean to trick anybody or we kind of mean to mislead anybody in any way, and it can be heartbreaking if you've spent 90% of your reading as dead-on accurate and then suddenly your critical mind gets in the way, you make a mistake, but that person hangs on that one piece of mistake and not the 90% evidence that you have presented that's been really good, which might include a name, a passing condition, a date, you know, the dog's name, right, right, that kind of thing. And it's heartbreaking because you, you know, I'm just talking from a real honest point of view, is we're human and that humanness interferes with that consciousness. And if I'm— I can think of a really common one as well, Brian D Smith, is I was once coming down with the flu. I didn't know I was coming down with the flu, and you know, I'd had a week of brilliant readings, and then this one day I couldn't connect. I'm like, "Oh, what's happened? Like, hello? Hello?" And, you know, I had to be really— I was quite embarrassed. I just sort of said, you know, "I don't know what's wrong. I can't connect today." But the next day I came down with the flu, and all that I did in that case is say to the client, "Would you mind if I read for you in a week's time and reschedule? And if I can't read for you on that occasion, I'll refund you." whatever reason I can't get the connection today. I have to respect that there'll be a reason for that, and I don't know what that reason is, but I just have to respect it. And the next day I came down with flu. So yeah, your physical health also plays a role. You've got to be healthy, you've got to look after your body, a good diet. You know, even my diet is changing. I can't eat red meat anymore. I can do it on special occasions, but I can't if I'm constantly working. I can only do it when I've got time off. Because it interferes. It's a lower level vibration, and I get really bad stomachache now, or kind of gassy exchanges going on if I'm eating red meat during a reading period. And if I've got a weekend off, then that's not a problem. I've got 48 hours to get it out of my system, absolutely fine. What I find is that you have to have a healthy diet. You also have to kind of keep yourself to a level of fitness, or kind of to a certain degree as well, because been out in nature, whether it's walking or running, or just to keep— sort of to cleanse, really, all the energy work that you're doing. You're carrying other people's gray matter, their conditions, their loved ones, their feelings with you, and you've got to have a method of kind of allowing those to wash over you and to sort of neutralize, if you like. Does that make sense?

It does.

And you touched on a lot of really good things there.

Because what I really want to do is help people set expectations for people.

Because there are people who are— I don't like the word skeptical, I'm skeptical— who are cynical about mediumship, that just says it can't possibly happen. And then they bring up some of these objections, like, if that person was a medium, then they would have known that this was going to happen, because I think all mediums can read the future. Or if that person was a true medium, they could tell me my mother's Social Security number. You know, they, they think it should be like sitting down having a conversation with someone sitting, you know, right next to you. So you talked about, you know, several things there. One is it's a multiple-tiered connection. I've heard a lot of people say three-way. It might be a four-way or five-way because—

yeah, it's true, because the guides interact as well.

The person on the other side is interacting a lot of times with your guide, who is then interacting with you, and then that all these people's energy needs to come together. So it's your, it's your mental state.

That's right.

Yeah. And it's your mental state as the medium. It's my state as a sitter. I've talked to a lot of people that are going into readings, and I've worked with the guy who's a medium, and people would be— they're on the— their baby's crying in the background, they're trying to have a reading, or they're in their car driving trying to have a reading, or they come to a reading drunk, you know, you know. And these types of things are not conduces to having a good reading. The sitter has responsibility. The sitter's got to be in the right frame of mind.

Having a nice quiet spot somewhere that you can concentrate, that you can listen. Maybe giving yourself 5 minutes before the reading to kind of allow yourself to come to a— not a space of peace, but stillness or quietness. To set the intention of who you want to hear from and what you'd like to hear about. And spirit world often know, but it's nice for them to hear, this is my 'priority' or 'this is who I want.' And it always helps. It helps the medium do that connection and get the strongest connection, if you like. And I don't mind skeptics, but what I do find is that sometimes people come and they want to laugh, and you're just kind of like, 'Well, I don't mind you being curious, I don't mind you being spiritual, please be respectful. I'm working really hard. I've left a six-digit salary to do this,' or behalf of spirit world. I can honestly say I earn a fraction of that now, and I do it for the love of what the spirit world have asked me to do. It's about healing and helping. I think the innate purpose of mediumship is to help people find closure or to heal, and it's to— it's not— it's to show them the continuation of love, that love has no end and it has no beginning. And it can be extremely healing, you know. You can have people people that I know and you know from the mediums that we've worked with or interacted with that have saved lives. They've prevented somebody from taking their own life, maybe suicide. They've maybe given some person a different way to look at grief or sort of brought around such evidential evidence for someone. It's given somebody the peace that they suddenly are sleeping at night when they haven't slept for 3, 4 months, and they've got insomnia and they're up the wall with panic attacks. And, you know, grief is a really harsh thing. And the other thing that I'd say is we've seen in our cycle of work, from the charity work that we do, and, you know, 2, 3 years down the line, it's heartbreaking, but some of the sitters or the people that I love, they start falling ill because they've got blockages in the body from the emotion. They get heart disease or cancers and stuff like that. Grief is a serious thing, and anything that can disband grief or can support somebody, that can, you know, cause a transition in the body— I guess at the end of the day, it's compassion, isn't it? It's compassion. If you can be compassionate towards somebody, listen to somebody, and give people information that is useful to them and can help them, then that's got to be a good thing. And so we often, when we're looking at the skeptical or the cynical side of things, we're trying to look for the negative of it, but let's look at the positives too. Let's have a balanced view. What are the benefits? What are the positives? And there are a lot of positives. There's a lot of people whose lives have been completely changed, of which Mine is definitely one of them. You know, if I had not known about mediums, if my sister had not had a contact with one when she'd had a miscarriage, then my life could have been very, very different when I had this opening of the psychic faculty as well, because I could have ended up in a mental institute with lots of drugs thrown down my neck because people wanted to perceive it as bipolar or psychosis or something, because I'm suddenly saying I'm hearing things, seeing things, and And things on the other serious side, I say to people, think very, very carefully. You know, in some cases this was not mental illness, but people wanted to believe it was. They would prefer to believe it was mental illness than that I was actually having a mediumistic awakening. And that's really, really dangerous. And I'm just really thankful that I had the right people around me in the spirit world, really came in at full force to show me a different way, and they told me what to do. They told me where to start running, they told me where to go to get the evidence. I went to a town I'd never been to before looking for black and white photos. One they said would have the hay bale on it. My granddad said it would have the name Sutcliffe on it, and it was. That was the photographer, Frank Medison Sutcliffe, very famous photographer. Never knew he took photographs of my family 3 generations back. And here's the inclusive thing which I love, is that my sister had done the family tree. She's really into history. And at the exact same time, coincidence, synchronicity, I don't know, but I think it's amazing, we suddenly get the pictures that match the family tree that she's done and we're able to match the 7 kids that lived 3 generations back to the dates. The dates check out, their names check out, and it's incredible. So then you're kind of left with, wow, here's the people that wanted this to be psychosis, or they wanted this to be bipolar. That actually sat a lot easier with them than the idea that there's something else communicating with me.

Yeah.

And different levels of consciousness communicating with me.

Yeah.

Well, that kind of brings us back to the imagination versus the imaginal. And I want to talk about, like, mediumship. Okay, so we're going to talk about mental mediumship and transmediumship and physical mediumship. But just within mental mediumship, um, there should be— and you being trained in England, you guys are really into the evidence. There should be evidence in a reading. So when I'm setting people's expectations, I want to lower them from thinking that medium's going to be 100% accurate, because no medium is. But I also want to raise people's expectations. I need to tell you more than that— I have your grandmother here and she loves you very much. Um, the, the only way we know it's imaginal versus imagination is if we have some evidence.

Yeah. Um, so let me think. Who was I reading for last night? And yeah, so you— well, in fact, if I think about the group readings I did last week, you know, I've got a brother here. He dies from a cancer. The cancer will have been in his pancreas or stomach because he's touching my stomach area there. He also tells me there's a secondary condition. I'm not sure if it's with him or you, but he's just suddenly like moving my wrist and talking about a wrist issue. 'Have you got a wrist issue at the moment?' 'Yes, I have.' 'Okay, so what is this wrist issue?' And you— the evidence can be dates, it can be names. Some things can be harder. Now, what I would say that frustrates me, Brian D Smith, is sometimes you can have somebody that sits in front of you and you can get names and you can get dates, and you can— it can be the best reading that you've ever done. One of my favorite readings was so ridiculously evidential because they said You know, my favorite one is that I said— the son said to me, and I even laughed because I thought the chances of this are crazy, he said, I really want my parents to meet— oh gosh, the president, the former president of the USA, Barack Obama. And I was like, I started laughing and going, please don't shoot the messenger, but he's adamant that he would like— he's trying to arrange for you to meet Barack Obama face-to-face. Now, the interesting thing here, Brian, is that, that, um, that evidence, you know, they had had a phone call with Barack Obama once, and, but they'd never seen him face-to-face. But unbeknownst to us, at the exact time that that reading was taking place, his best friend now an aide to a congressman in Ohio, was in a lineup meeting Barack Obama. And the— this is the other weird thing that spirit do, they're very, very clever, Brian. The parent in question on this call goes for a walk and leaves the phone in the house, and the phone call comes through, and the aide, the sitter's best friend, sorry, the spirit person's best friend and Barack Obama trying to FaceTime the client, only she's left her phone in the flat. So you're like, oh, so not only have you told— they told you something that's in the future that you couldn't possibly have known because it hasn't even happened, right? But they forget their phone. Why would they do that? This was something that troubled me. Why would they go to this effort of doing this amount of evidential work and then she doesn't pick up the phone. Well, the reason for that is because the person that they wanted to touch was the best friend, and that story that he was still alive and that love still lives on would not have been passed forth had the drama not happened over missing the call.

Wow.

And so you— what I love there is, wow, the spirit world's intelligence. They want to touch more than one person. So So I— you can have a reading like that and that's powerful. That's probably your best reading in the world and you're really chuffed. You've had a great day at work. The next call you take, you've got good evidence, you've got a connection, you've got evidence and stuff about, you know, they lived abroad, they— this is a father, lived abroad, very intelligent, I can see lots of books around them, potentially works in a corporate world, very well educated, reaches a good level, likes cars, likes luxury cars, shows me a white car, shows me a BMW, at some point would have owned a BMW, a white BMW. And you can get— it's okay, it's okay, it's good, but it's okay, it's just okay. And that person's upset because you haven't got the names, you haven't got the dates. You— and so it's very hard. You go from this complete high of, wow, amazing readings, or maybe in the group readings that are quite consistent, and it's a connection, it's good, there's information there that is evidential, right? It's not accurate as saying you're gonna get a call from former president of the USA.

Right, right.

And then laughing at that as well, or being told about the problem of the humpback whales on the coastline of Hawaii, and we're like, I don't know anything about humpback whales. Do you know anything about humpback whales? No, I don't know anything. Was he a marine biologist? Did he like humpback whales? Yeah, he's a marine biologist, loves humpback whales.

Can we Google it?

Can we find out? Do we know? Is this correct? Is that evidential? Sometimes you don't even know what you're saying is evidential. And the magic is when you find out after the reading that it's correct. And I've even had it sometimes, again, another example of wanting to touch more than one soul, telling, telling somebody the day before, you know, saying the day before the person passed over this, they were in another country, they were at this church, they named the country, they described the church, and the person saying no, they absolutely weren't there the day 'before,' and then you say, 'Well, on this occasion, I admit I make mistakes sometimes, but this feels really strong, so I'm gonna say I don't like to leave something with you, but on this occasion I'm gonna have to because this—' They're not backing down on this. Every time I go to say, 'Have I made a mistake?' they're saying no. So I'll be the first one to admit a mistake if I feel that I've made one, but if they're adamant, I won't go there, Brian D Smith. And I think that's important to sort understand. And the next day, that person rings and said, you won't believe it, they were with their uncle the day before, and they did go to that church, and they were in that country. And I can say that because I've got it in the third category of my mind, because I've been there. And then you've got this brilliant kind of moment where you realize again that spirit person wanted to touch that person that they loved that wasn't in the reading that day. And, and so it's It's intelligent. That's what I'll say.

It's intelligent, Brian D Smith. Those are things that are, that are super evidential. And it also brings up a couple of objections I've heard to mediumship, which is interesting when people say, oh, they're just mind reading, when these are people who are materialists who don't believe in mind reading to begin with, right? But they say, oh, the medium is reading your mind. But there are times, as you've given some evidence, where you'll say something that the sitter doesn't know. Mediums will actually sometimes get something from the future. So I've had readings where it's like, no, I don't understand this, I don't understand what you're talking about. And then it happens in a week, you know, it's something that, because on the spirit world either there is no time or it's different or they can predict the future because there are things that they'll tell you that are going to happen to you. And those are very real.

My best moments are always in trance. I had a hilarious one at the weekend and I was doing some work, um, Which kind of brings us to the— what are the sort of— what are the types of mediumship? But I was doing some trance work, I was actually doing some transfiguration where the spirit world can actually overshadow you and they connect you under red light. You can actually see the spirit person's face and on top of you. I don't do it very often, but it was an amazing thing to do for a couple that I really, really love. And so I said, I'll show you this It'll take me about half an hour to an hour to get to this level, but if you see this, you think it's magic. It's just amazing. And I love doing it because it's so interesting to me to sort of understand and learn more, because every time I do it, you learn more. And so you've got curiosity as the, as the medium to want to understand how far can spirit take it as well. What is the— you know, because they're always pushing your boundaries. But in this the evidence that was presented was extremely accurate on 90% of the thing, and then one thing didn't fit. I said, why is he taking me to a toe and showing me a fungal infection in a toe? Does somebody have a fungal infection in the toe? And they were like, no. And then the very next day, and it was absolutely hilarious, Brian D Smith, an email came sent directly to the person who was sat in front of me, and the subject matter was a toenail fungal infection, and it was sent by somebody who had no awareness of that reading. All that, so again, it was a future event, nothing that we knew about. And you could say, is it a coincidence? Maybe, but it's a bit of a strange coincidence. It was almost like the spirit person having a bit of sense of humor and trying to have a joke and sort of lighten the situation, if you will. So you get mental mediumship. We talked about the clairs in terms of clairvoyance, audience, sentience, salience, gustance, cognitive cognition in terms of knowing. So you just know things, you get touched, you get empathy, and you can get some physical feeling in mental mediumship too.

And just to be clear for people that don't really understand the terms we're throwing around, when you go to see a medium, you go to pay to see a medium one-on-one, most likely frequently it's mental mediumship. It's mediumship that's going on in the mind, whether connecting with someone on the other side.

Yeah, through the mind and through the senses. Yes. And, and, and you might, if you've got somebody like myself who works in trance, get some gestures. You might get some mannerisms. Mm-hmm. And that can be really nice if that happens. That can be really, really evidential and really, really nice, especially if you get the walk or the dance that somebody does. It can be quite fun. Then, then you've got, you've got a few other things you get. So in the mental mediumship, you can also get inspirational speaking. So somebody can just, oh, I've got your guides here, or got your loved one here, and they just want to speak. And you can— it's almost like your consciousness slightly alters and you just end up going into a speech on a certain subject or a topic. That can happen if somebody's very spiritually open, they're wanting advice, or they're wanting inspiration, the spirit world will utilize that opportunity. And you can then also get channeling. So channeling is different to mental mediumship in that, you know, and channeling can be labeled lots of different things. Here's the thing, a friend of mine, her brother is a Grammy Award winner, he's a musician, and when I asked him how he composes his songs and his lyrics, he described the exact same process that I use for channeling writing, chanting poetry, or kind of working and interacting with the spirit world when I'm writing. I'm not very musical, but as you know, I was born, I couldn't sing. In trance, suddenly all these like amazing operatic sounds come out, got sacred sounds coming out of my mouth. They've got a healing capacity and quality to them. They can sometimes project frequency, overtone singing I've never heard of. Happens to be Tibetan Mongolian. I had to look it up. Same with vibrato. My friend's a classical singer. I was like, what the hell is this? She's like, that's vibrato, but I studied 24 years as a classical singer, Kath, and I can't do it. So how can you when you can't sing? And I'm like, I don't know, that's my question. So all these amazing sort of skills and talents come up that are really evidential in themselves, because if you don't do it in your everyday life and you actually think think it's something that you're very bad at, which is what I feel about my singing. And then suddenly you're hitting notes on cue and notes that Beyoncé would die for. You're like, mm, what's going on there? And then when you realize that those notes or sounds have got power to heal as well, and the frequency has a healing capacity— very, very interesting. You don't necessarily know what to do with it, but you're fascinated by it. Yeah. Then, then you've got transmediumship. So in transmediumship you can get many things. So this is where the mannerisms come through, the gestures, the walks. Sometimes the voice box will change. I think they're playing with my voice box at the moment. At the moment my voice, I think it's only changed on one occasion that I can talk about, where you can actually hear somebody else's voice. So we've seen transmediums work, you and I, on Zoom, and the whole voice and the whole mannerisms completely change, don't they? Yes. In trance, you can get transfiguration as well. This is the overshadowing that I was talking about the weekend, where the spirit person— and we actually saw two people morphing in and out, and then they would pause for, you know, 5 minutes, and then the other person would blend out and the other person would come in. And the spirit world are experimenting as well. There was two people that really desperately need to see loved ones. And it was nice because both of them saw different sides of their personality, of the mannerisms. So I lay out and put my hands in there, you know, hands up and one in the pocket, as they would when they were lying out on a couch. At the same time, their face appears on my face, their hands over my hands. And what was interesting for me is you can feel when the spirit world are doing something, because it's like I'm getting a tingling in my hand. Watch my hand. And then suddenly you're like, "Oh, your hand's just changed!" And I was, "It's like a hand, it's double the size of yours, it doesn't look like your hand." And I said, "Well, now my face is tingling on this side. Watch the side of the face." And then as they watch that side of the face, my head turns and they're like, "Oh, oh wow, I can see the side of the face!" So, you know, is it a projection? I don't know, but it's very interesting. And so you can get, you can get transfiguration. Then you can get the physical side of things. So if you go slightly deeper now, I know I don't think I've ever done physical mediumship, although I get some physical feelings on passing conditions and things like that. I don't tend to— I don't think I've ever been part of a physical circle. I've seen table tilting, and I've seen where in a séance where the trumpet that's been marked with Illumina's tape lifts lifts off the table, only a few inches. I've never seen things move with the physical eye or anything like that. I'd love to, I'd be fascinated by it. But I believe that that is physically possible, and I don't know if you've seen it, Brian D Smith, but I know Tracy has, hasn't she?

I have not in person, but I know, I know people that have. Yeah, yeah.

And so you, you get different voices, you know, somebody— it used to be in the Victorian times, in in the UK that this, this trumpet would lift, it would move around the room on its own, elevated, nobody holding it, and the voice would come out. And actually, I've heard of manifestations as well, people manifesting crystals or flowers out of the spiritual realm into the physical. I've never seen it myself. I would love to. I'm as skeptical as the next person person when it comes to things like that. But I'd love to see it, love to experience. I'm open-minded. If it can be done, great. I get a bit confused as to whether that— why that's done in dark light. I know that with transfiguration, you can't see it. You can't always see it. You can sometimes see it. You can't always see it unless you dim the lights and put the red light on a little bit so you can see the overshadowing because it's so subtle. And but with physical mediumship, I'm not sure why you need to take the lights off, because surely if things things were moving around, they could move around.

The explanation is ectoplasm, which is used to actually produce the manifestations, is sensitive to light.

So it retracts. That makes sense.

There's some people that are working with different forms that they say may be able to be done in light in the future, but right now it's because of the way the ectoplasm is. It's light sensitive. That's interesting.

There's lots of things there. Remote viewing— I love this concept of labeling. So remote viewing, a faculty of clairvoyance, this idea that you can take a map, audience, and take your mind to that space at any particular time or date and imagine what is there, or see, imaginal, and maybe see what, what is there in that spot. Now the USA Army, from what I understand, '23, '24, for maybe 30 years of research on remote viewing, have had extreme success with it. And actually, sometimes it's the— what I love about this as well, they would set a control, somebody who's not mediumistic or ever done remote viewing before, to do the same thing. And often they find that the control is more successful than the other people that are doing the remote viewing, and which is very, very interesting itself. But When you call it remote viewing, it becomes a science. When they call it clairvoyance, it becomes this weird thing. So the power of labeling is a little bit like the channeling. You call it songwriting, it's cool. You call it inspirational words or channeling, suddenly it's in the doo-doo-doo sort of field. So again, I say with interest, the way that we label things is very, very interesting as well and can cause people to have different different reactions to things. So, you know, I know myself, if I call it mediumship training, it's like, ooh. If I call it connection techniques, everyone's very interested because I've taken away the goofiness of the— it's just a weird thing, isn't it? It's the human faculty. And but we can also get inspirational speaking, like I talked about. We can also get signs, synchronicities, serendipity, which we've had lots of experience with. Yeah. And most people in their everyday life have little coincidences. We don't always talk about— it's very interesting. I did, I did a demonstration on Saturday in Chester for 44 people who've never seen mediumship before. Their friend sadly, a young man, died in a car accident, and it was his birthday. So we did it as a— I've never done this before. It was very, very interesting, almost slightly experimental. I was a bit nervous about it, but it went really, really well and was very well receptive. It's nice to work with young people who've never seen this and to let them be open-minded and sort of see what they think. They all started off very skeptical, crossed hands, and then by the end of it you could see they all wanted a reading, or they all were like, "Ooh, what is this?" You know, like, "Gosh, that's really strange. How can she know that?" It's very interesting, but what I, what I would say there in terms of signs and synchronicities— we all had a chat afterwards because everybody got really interested and it was really beautiful. All these young people, inspirational people from all different backgrounds, sat and started saying all the signs that they had had from their friend who'd passed that was pure evidence to them that he'd been with them. Some of them seen him in the mirror, some of them seen him in the room. Physically in the room interacting with them. Some of them had experienced him changing their dreams when they were having nightmares. Some of them had seen things move in the house, lights flicker, all sorts of things. And, you know, I'd say in a room of 44 people, there was at least half the room that had had an experience. And maybe we just never talk about it, right? Right. Absolutely. And so this was really, really— it was really refreshing, Brian, and it really sort of opened my mind to— I think this is more common than we think. And I remember before I came across Helping Parents Heal as well, it's like I am— I thought I was the only person that was having these signs, synchronicities, and the weird— the universe is talking to me. Like, why is this not happening to anybody else? And then you meet these— you realize that about 12,000 people are having the same experience And suddenly it's like, oh, I'm not, I'm not weird, I'm not different, this is normal. Hey, I found my tribe, somebody knows what I'm talking about. Yeah, exactly. It's a relief, isn't it? It's a relief. So that's the other thing that I'd say. But at the end of the day, I think it's about love. I think it's just— and I think the human capacity is— I just think we're extraordinary beings. And we probably only tapped into about, I don't know, 30% of our potential. I think what we're capable of is so much more, but we're frightened to explore the magnificence of who we could potentially be, not just as an individual but as a race. And I think it could be really, really different the more we come together and talk of it. And perhaps science needs to do a little bit more. There's some great inroads scientifically, as we've seen from some of the videos of brains being scanned and sort of seeing that there is interaction and a quietening of the mind going— brain going on. And we sort of see areas lighting up with colors and stuff as people start to interact with spirit. And there's just not enough funding, or kind of, you know, there needs to be all a fusion of all different faculties. And it's good to be openly cynical, but let's test it out. Let's find out. What's going on. Let's not be too quick to judge or to label it differently. Let's, let's discover, let's find out. It's interesting, that's what I'd say. It changes your life. I lived a very successful life before. I just, I'm so much happier in my life now. I feel it's so much more rewarding when you can help people or can support people. And when spirit are in your world Everything's magical because you can go on holiday and they'll start educating you. Or, you know, they'll work within the everyday life. You don't have to be a full-time medium to be spiritual or work with spirit. That's the other thing. And especially if you've lost a loved one, they can interact with you in your everyday life. My first experience of my grandfather really interacting with me was— other than the first vision that I saw of him— it was actually taking a wrong turn in an area that I knew really well. Ending up on a street that had his name, looking up, seeing the street, his name on a house, feeling a bit confused, getting out of the car, looking down at the tile, and then seeing his nickname on the tile underneath my feet. And then I was like, oh my god, hello, are you here? Hello, what is this? And it was kind of almost, you know, a bit weird, but I was kind of like excited at the same time, as in like, you're like, are you here? You know, and I didn't know about signs or synchronicities or anything. I had to work it out for myself. And I think that's the magic, you know. Love never ends. Love will always find a way. And we don't have to be mediumistic. We don't have to be weird, woo-woo. We can all come together. We can share our experiences, and we can find that we've probably got more in common than we think.

Yeah, you touched on a couple things there. I want to kind of go back backtrack over. I mean, mediumship, we don't know how it works, and so a lot of people therefore say it's impossible. But I believe— I've come to believe it's more of a tapping into subtle senses that we all have that we typically ignore because our other senses overcrowd them or drown them out, because our brains can only focus on so many things at a time. So a medium trains themselves to work with these more subtle senses that we all have. So we can't all become professional mediums necessarily, but we all, we all have intuition. We've all had these—

we might not even want to, right?

Right, right, exactly.

And that's the thing, we're all different, we're all unique, we're all creative. Let's celebrate our individuality. We, we can all experience it in different ways. And, you know, a medium would be out of work if everybody wanted to be a medium. And vice versa, if everybody wanted to be a scientist, then there'd be no creativity, right?

But what I want to do is I want to demystify it for people. So it's like, like, like you said at the very beginning, mediums are not these people that are just really weird. And, and some people are born with more of that faculty than others. I mean, that's—

I think that's crazy enough to take a leap of faith, but we're not, we're not daft. We're intelligent human beings. Right.

And we all have some capacity to do these things. And I've, and I've said I had no capacity to do them. I've done some mediumship development with you a little bit. And it's like, I've gotten a couple things like, wow, I can't believe that was actually real. So we're coming up on about an hour. So I wanted to— I know you and I could talk all day long. And we'll, we'll probably do this a few more times to talk about some other things. But I really appreciate you doing this and being here to kind of demystify you know, mediumship for people and tell us about your perspective.

Yeah, I think it's normal. That's what I'd say. I'd encourage anybody to be curious and to investigate it. If it's not for you, then it's not for you, but at least you've tried, at least you've been open-minded, at least you've explored it. And I find it more frustrating if people shut you down and kind of don't explore it or look into it. I had an amazing one last night, actually. I'll finish on this. A young man came through last night. He was highly— the reading was actually meant to be for his partner, and he said, we've had to change of heart. I really want to have the reading. My partner's gonna sit alongside and witness this. I'm totally skeptical. That was his opening line. I'm totally skeptical, but I'm open-minded. And it was a beautiful, beautiful moment because he told me who he wanted to connect with. That person brought very good validation and evidence. But then he said he needed to test me a bit more, and he said, okay, I need you to give me the way that he says hello. The way that he says hello is very unusual. It's not a normal hello or hi. If you can get this, then I'm gonna really have to question what's going on. And I started to smile and I said, okay, it might take me 5 minutes, just bear with me because I'm gonna have to expand my energy and he's gonna have to work out how he's gonna get the through to me. I said, so he starts and he says it's longer than hi but it's shorter than hello. So I said, I know it's a bit like hangman, but can you agree with me, the statement, the word that he uses is longer than hi and shorter than hello? And he said yes. Okay, let me keep going with this. And then suddenly I hear him say hola, and I went, oh, he says it sounds like hola but it's deeper, and he's using a deeper voice, and he's saying I won't get the exact the exact pronunciation of it, at which point the guy literally jumped out of his chair. He started screaming. He was throwing his hands up in the air. I was like, hello, are you okay? Hello, are you okay? He's like, oh, how can this be? How can it be? And because it's an intelligence, there is an intelligence responding, will always get it right. And if I can't get it right, I'll tell you. But if I can and they can get it through to me— and I had another one with a nickname. I can't always get nicknames because they're difficult to get because they're not common names. But they'll do the charades thing. Somebody whose nickname was Buddy, they start saying it's like muddy. They're showing me muddy, they're muddy all over, and they're talking about rhymes with muddy. Do you understand? Rhymes with muddy. Don't know what it is, but it rhymes with muddy. Yes, okay, it's Buddy. And so you— it is like charades sometimes. It is. And they have to interact with you. And if they can, they will. And if they can't and you can't get it, then it's frustrating. But at least we give it a try, and sometimes it can be magical because of that.

Yeah, I just want to caution people that you're one of the best mediums I know, so don't go to a medium expecting they're gonna be able to get how your best friend said hello. Some people work differently.

Yeah, yeah, some people work differently. And actually, some people— we should maybe raise this just before we finish, actually. Some people like to work with you on a one-to-one. They, they can't work with more than one sitter. And people like myself and others that I know like to work in groups, so we can read for a group and go from one person to the other. It doesn't interrupt us at all. Or we can have more than one person sitting in front of us, it doesn't interfere. Some people need to concentrate more. People don't realize mediumship is actually a very difficult difficult skills sometimes. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of concentration. So some people work differently and they need that quiet space and they need that concentration and it's hard. So, yeah, so there are different expectations out there, but we're all trying to push our boundaries, we're all trying to expand, we're all trying to get better at what we do, but it's not a case of like one person's better than the other. You should all always go to a medium that resonates with you. Because yes, that you can have your favorites, that's, that's great. I love having my favorite clients too. I don't want to lose that, I enjoy that. But equally, there are times where you can look at a group of mediums and one person will jump off the page, and that's because their life experience and their vocabulary and what spirit wants to teach you or tell you about, that person knows about like the back of their hand. You know, 6 months later you might look at that page and that person person's no longer of interest to you. This is where your own intuition comes into play. Realize that actually the person that's right for you is this person. And, you know, and then occasionally you just feel, actually, I'm a person who really likes routine, and I'm so comfortable with this person, that's my go-to person. That's fine as well. But it's nice to see different styles of mediumship, and it's, it's different people give you different to see what resonates with you. That's what I'd say, and see where you go with that. But if you do want to work with me, you can get in touch with me through my website www.cat-b.com or my Facebook site Medium Cat B. I love talking to people, as you can probably tell from the fact that we've overrun. But you know, it's, it is what it is. We're trying to do our best and Even with the best mediums in the world, sometimes you won't get the connection that you need. Sometimes you will get it with bells on. So as long as you go with open-minded and you understand it's a process, they will try to do their best, the very best that they can do for you. And that's, that's, you know, there's an element of hope and an element of trust in the spirit world too. And that's really what mediumship is about.

Thanks, Kat. And I will put your contact information information in the show notes. So on YouTube, it'll be underneath and on the podcast, they'll be there also. But great talking to you again. I'm sure we'll do this again. But this is great. Now I've got an office.

Yay! You can talk to me all you like. Lovely to see you, darling.

See you later. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian D Smith hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian D Smith's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian Brian D Smith and Grief 2 Growth. Visit www.grief2growth.com.

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