A couple weeks ago I stumbled across a website with a list of criteria for determining whether or not a psychic is a fake. I found the same criteria on numerous other web sites; including several that offered the list as a way to determine if a healer is a fraud.
I was a bit dismayed that the most common criteria listed for declaring a psychic to be a fake was whether or not s/he asked questions. A “real” psychic should be able to give you information without asking any questions. A “real” healer should be able to work with a client without asking questions. Following this logic, if I go to a doctor and he isn’t able to diagnose me without asking about my symptoms he’s not a real doctor.
Doing a cold reading, without no information about the person, is basically psychic improv. Just as all comedians aren’t adept at improv, neither are all psychics. Some comedians are gifted with creating material on the spot based on a prompt from the audience. Other comedian’s strength lies in writing and crafting material ahead of time. Not excelling at psychic improv does not mean a psychic is a fake.
When a healer works with a client, how the client feels about an issue and his perception of the issue is just as important as the issue itself. Getting a more comprehensive picture that includes how the client feels and how he sees the issue usually requires asking some questions. Having a more complete picture allows for a deeper healing session.
The supposition that asking questions makes someone a fake psychic or healer is based on a couple faulty premises:
1. If a psychic asks questions, she’s asking because she’s not getting any real information.
2. The gifts and intuition that psychics use all works the same way.
Yes, there are people working as psychics who rely solely on body language, vocal cues and other observations. If a psychic asks questions it’s possible he is looking for information so he can rephrase it and feed it back to the client. It’s also possible the psychic is asking questions because she’s receiving an overload of information and needs a way to narrow it down.
Imagine walking into a three bedroom house inhabited by a family of four. You don’t know the family. You haven’t been in the house before. You’re asked to go into the house and find the straight pin with the orange head.
The house is large; filled with furniture and personal belongings. You don’t know who last used the straight pins or in which room. If you find the pin, it’ll probably take hours and hours of searching. If someone tells you the pins were last used in the garage, chances are you’ll find the pin much faster.
In terms of size and scope, the human psyche (emotional, spiritual and energetic landscape) is more like a multi-million dollar mansion than a three bedroom house. Each person’s psyche is filled with biographical wounding and experience, unresolved pieces from other lifetimes, current personality conflicts and the item that got left off last week’s grocery list. Some of this information is relevant to what’s going on now, some isn’t.
There’s also a huge variance in how energetically loud people are. Some people tend to broadcast most of what’s going on with them. Others broadcast very little unless they are upset or broadcast only their immediate concerns.
People who broadcast more can be challenging to read. Asking questions to find out what the person is most concerned with is vital in sorting out the information s/he presents.
People who broadcast very little are also challenging to read. It’s easy to assume that if someone doesn’t broadcast much, whatever info he presents must be the most important. Actually the exact opposite is often true. When a person seeks help with something he feels shame or fear around, he may bury the issue so it’s easier to carry and others don’t pick up on it. Unconsciously he may broadcast irrelevant information to keep the issue hidden.
Many people, as soon as they hear psychic, envision a fortune teller who makes predictions. There are psychics who are gifted in sensing and sorting out possibilities related to a situation. Just as not all carpenters can build a beautiful kitchen cabinet, not all psychics have a gift for prediction.
Not all psychics and healers work the same way. Actually how they receive information and what information they get is very individual. Well over 100 different intuitive gifts have been identified. One of the more commonly known is clairvoyance – the ability to receive information via images, visions or some other form of seeing.
Many people assume a psychic or healer who is clairvoyant sees visions inside his or her own mind. That’s not always the case. Some clairvoyants do see images or visions internally. Others see them externally. Some see and read people’s energy fields. Other clairvoyants see and communicate with ghosts, spirits, guides, etc.
Just as different people notice different things the first time they walk in to a house, different clairvoyants pick up different kinds of information. Some pick up future possibilities while others are more attuned the past. Other clairvoyants resonate more with current emotions and concerns. Additionally some clairvoyants can chose what they see and what information they tune in to, others can’t.
The same variance exists in every other intuitive gift. Simply knowing what a psychic or healers primary gift is doesn’t tell you much about how they receive information or what kinds of information they pick up.
The first piece of information a psychic or healer receives could be a nudge to ask the client a specific question. I’ve had that experience many times. When the client answers I both listen to what she says and read her energy field as she speaks. Our energy fields shift in response to what we say. Even if a client is unaware of feeling fear, anxiety or resistance, those emotions will show up in her field when she talks about the issue. That gives me more to work with. The more I know, the better I can serve a client.
I know from experience having intuitive gifts doesn’t prevent a psychic or healer from making assumptions. Psychic or not, assumptions are more likely when questions go unasked.
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