Our first visit to a Spiritual Medium
Are mediums for real? Can they really speak to dead people? This is what happened when we first tried it to find out.
After our son passed away from liver disease in early 2020, my wife and I were immersed in grief. Each of us had our own way to deal with the pain. She kept mainly to herself, while I started looking for answers in Scripture and spiritual books.
While reading to help with the grief, I found a book called My Search for Christopher On The Other Side, by Joe McQuillen. I was drawn to it because Joe had lost his young son and I could relate to his pain.
In his book, Joe explains how he visited with multiple spiritual mediums. And even though they all had different gifts and varying techniques, each medium seemed to help him. But I still thought that option was somehow wrong.
My wife and I were both raised as Catholics and we both went to Catholic schools. I knew that there was no way that she would consider a medium, and I was aware of various Bible verses that cautioned:
And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. (Leviticus 20:5–7, KJV)
That didn’t sound good.
But then we were shocked when we started seeing “orbs” in May of 2020. That paranormal experience, which continued for more than two years, led to my spiritual awakening. That awakening, which I describe in my podcast series “The Soul Unleashed”, has caused me to consider things that I would have thought as crazy or cult-like prior to losing our son.
One of those crazy things was seeing a spiritual medium.
So where the heck do you go when trying to find a reputable medium? I first went to Google. Spoiler alert: there is no paucity of mediums out there on the internet.
I then made a list of mediums from Joe McQuillen’s book. Another Spoiler Alert: Joe’s tastes are not inexpensive. Those mediums were out of my league, especially when I just wanted to see what the experience was like.
And, knowing that I had yet to talk my wife into joining me, having to explain that it was going to cost about $1000 for a half-hour was a non-starter.
Through a sympathetic friend, I found a local medium who would see both of us for $150 for an hour. And even though this was in the midst of the COVID pandemic, she agreed to meet in person in her office. I convinced my wife to join me, and off we went!
I did not know what to expect, and my wife was nervous. The medium, Lisa, had a small office in a nice little office park, which was deserted at our appointment time of 7 pm. Not only was it past normal office hours, but with the pandemic, virtually no one was using their offices.
We sat in a nice little waiting room painted in a neutral white color. There was a single candle. There was some murmuring behind the one office door in the suite, but we could not hear anything. Our anxiety increased as we waited. My wife was looking at me and after 40+ years of marriage, I could read it as, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Then the door opened and Lisa escorted one gentleman out the door. She asked us to wait another few minutes while she “sanitized” the space, then invited us in. We were all wearing masks, so the “in-person” experience was a bit muted.
I’ve come to appreciate that such sessions are far more meaningful when all parties can see faces, even if the session is done remotely. It increases the emotional value.
Her office was painted the same relaxing white, with multiple candles. I could smell some incense. I had half expected to meet someone with face paint, who manipulated chicken bones and blood drippings. But Lisa was quite normal and pleasant.
She asked if we had ever visited with a medium before. I suspect that she could sense our uneasiness. (She’s supposed to know this stuff, right?)
So she spent about 20 minutes explaining to us about how mediums work and, in particular, how she works. She is clairvoyant and clairsentient, but not clairaudient, meaning that she could not hear things, but that “spirit” communicated with her via pictures and feelings.
We just nodded dumbly. Surreptitiously, I was checking my watch. Were we going to get gypped on the time? She was blowing a lot of it on this whole explanation thing.
Lisa then said, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure we spend a whole hour with your loved ones in Spirit. There is no one scheduled after you.”
Didn’t I feel small.
I then blurted out that we were there because our son, Matt, had passed away about 6 months earlier. She quickly cut me off and said, “Don’t tell me anything more!”
We later learned that a reputable medium will NOT want to know anything in advance. They want to get the validation from you. I liked Lisa.
We got started. Lisa closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.
“I am getting a male presence. Very strong. He wants me to tell you that his passing was a surprise. He knows that you expected that there would be more time. He loves you.”
Well, that’s when the tears started. She had tissues ready.
Even so, I was skeptical. It wasn’t much of a reach for her to conclude that the passing of our son was a surprise to us and that he loved us.
“He is showing me sun and bananas. He wants to convey the color yellow.”
We shook our head. No clue. (She had told us that if we could not validate something, to not stretch for it. She would ask for more info or just move on.) We moved on.
“Matt is showing me that his illness affected his entire body, from head to toe. He says there was initially hope that he might recover, but it all went quickly in the last six months.”
This was all true. We just nodded. Matt was grotesquely swollen from his head to his toes at the end. We had hope that he might be able to get a transplant, but it all happened too quickly.
“The yellow! He had liver problems, didn’t he? That is what the yellow was for!”
Bingo. The hair was standing up on my arms. Matt died from cirrhosis of the liver.
Lisa spent the next hour with many expressions of love and apology from Matt. We were on the edge of our seats and there were a lot of tears.
I’ll mention just one more surprising thing.
Lisa looked quizzically at my wife, “Do you hear Matt right now?”
It was such an odd question. My wife answered disappointingly, “No.”
Lisa cocked her head. She had told us that sometimes she sees images from Spirit but that she does not interpret it correctly. In those cases, she told us that she would just tell us what she saw.
“Matt is indicating his mother. He is pointing to his ears. That usually means that he is trying to communicate with you. He is quite insistent. Are you sure you don’t hear anything?”
We both felt disappointed. And then it hit me.
“Is Matt pointing to his ears?”, I asked to be sure.
“Yes.”
About a week earlier, Maryann was fitted with hearing aids for the first time. She had never used them before, certainly not around Matt. They were tiny and difficult to see her even if you were standing next to her. And, of course, they were concealed by her hair and the mask. There was no way that Lisa could have been aware of them.
“She just got hearing aids,” I exclaimed!
“Oh my gosh!”, Lisa said. “Matt is lighting me up!”, she said rubbing her arms. “That’s it!”
“He is jumping all over the place!” She was laughing. “He just wants you to know that he is always with you, and that he continues to be able to share your life with you, even though he has passed to Spirit.”
So how did it all go? Do we both believe that we actually were in communication with our deceased son?
Yes. No doubt. Positively.
We gained comfort, clarity, and hope. And it was the first of multiple times that we have since visited mediums.
If you have a similar experience or questions, please contact me or leave a comment!
