How to Tell You Got a Good Psychic Reading — First Part
Some Psychic Guidelines
To tell if you got a good psychic reading, you need to know what a bad one is, just as you should know what a good one is. A bad one makes you feel bad, uneasy, revolted, disgusted, sad, or angry. It’s bad.
It does not resonate with you. A good psychic reading will, on the other hand, make you feel better. Maybe even good. A good psychic reading makes your Spidey senses tingle. Everyone has Spidey senses. Something in a good psychic reading will resonate with you. The only way you will ever be able to experience either one is if you pay for one. You take your chances.
New psychic readers, many times, are willing to do readings for free. I know I did for years, putting off the last step of hanging out my shingle for a long time. The problem with getting a free reading from an inexperienced psychic reader is that they are inexperienced. Remember that saying, “You get what you pay for.”
A psychic should do readings on themselves a lot. Or find a friend who is willing to be a guinea pig. The difficulty with doing a psychic reading for yourself is that you have no separation. You can learn that as the years go by, and perhaps, that separation isn’t as small as it was in the beginning. Nevertheless, readings for yourself are always suspect. That’s why I always do more than one for myself at one time.
You want everything to be fine. You want everything to work out. And there is that pesky little thing we call wishful channeling. Your wants, needs, desires, and wishes tend to interfere with the truth. That’s not to say that practicing on yourself is an entirely bad thing. Just talking back and forth with your guides, or practicing with a Tarot deck, or pulling Runes is always useful. If you are going to use them during a reading, you need to learn the meanings of those tools of divination. I tend only to use them occasionally and never during a reading for somebody else just because I never got a good handle on the meanings.
However, the first time I drew a simple three-card spread from my first Tarot deck, I drew the Hanged Man, the Tower, and the Death card. Yikes. Even in my inexperience, I knew none of those three cards were good. I reshuffled the deck and drew the same three stinking cards — my blood pressure shot through the roof. I tried to calm myself down. Reshuffled and cut the deck several times. And I ended up drawing the same three cards on the third draw.
That’s when I went and read the directions.
I tend to do that with a lot of things I do. The directions get read after I’ve already tried to figure something out. This spans the gamut from Tarot decks to toasters to office chairs and cell phones. Which actually might explain why I have trouble answering my calls. Anyway, in a nutshell, those three cards represented huge, tremendous, life-changing changes in my life, which actually happened. When you awaken your Spidey senses to psychic things, incredible stuff can happen. I’ve never won any lottery tickets, though I’ve heard of people who have. I do know Edgar Cayce was banned from casinos during his lifetime just because he won too often. I wish that would happen to me, but no, that’s never been in the cards for me. At least the occasional Bingo game would do.
There are all sorts of pitfalls present for inexperienced readers. Even though there aren’t many schools for us, at least 30 years ago, and the industry is still unregulated, you can set your own standards for a good psychic reader.
Certainly, word of mouth is good when you are looking for a psychic. The same thing as with any books you write, the reviews you get are gold. So, reviews will help.
The world of a psychic tends to be that of an old soul. You do care about others, but sometimes, people just need to keep stubbing their toes over and over again. You can’t make that stop. You can make a suggestion, but if your client can’t see the obstacle, nothing coming from Spirit will make much of a difference to either one of you. You won’t realize that whatever Spirit says is worth a hill of beans, and therefore, you will unconsciously edit it, or it will be as if you are speaking a foreign language to your customer. It’s a fine line.
You would do the same thing, giving advice to a friend. You can’t make anybody do anything. You can only make suggestions. Remember that saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”
Which brings me to my next idea about good psychics. I think they might be better if they’ve been through some sort of therapy. Learning to become a psychic is a life-changing issue for a person. A good way to help you through your core beliefs being turned upside down and still be right is getting some psychotherapy. Therapy is never over; you conquer and understand your issues, go three years happy as a clam, and then your higher/inner self says with glee, “Oh, let’s work on that one some more. You are strong enough now to tackle it again.” You find yourself getting robbed, in a car accident, or involved in a family fight, and your triggers get pulled. Psychics are human, too. Always.
I made a promise to myself and the universe when I set out to be a psychic that I would do my best to look after my own emotional well-being. I always advise anybody I’m teaching to do the same. It worked for me. Maybe it will work for you too. It is hard to give a good reading if you’re not in a good emotional state. Sometimes, as with a lot of people, it takes a whole lot of kicking in the pants for a person to say, “I think I’ll sign up for some therapy.” The other thing I learned about therapy is that there’s always something new to figure out.
A spot of therapy now and again is good for anybody, psychic or not.
If you get a reading where the psychic keeps warning you and uses phrases like, you must, or you’ll die if you don’t, or you’ll be sorry, take it all with a grain of salt. What is better to be hearing are “things you might consider” or “another option might be.” So, no shoulds.
Never should on yourself anyway. It’s a good rule to have.
Here’s another one as an example of a bad psychic reading. “You will never find true love.” That is a bunch of malarky. There is no one true love for each person. You have lots of true loves in your lifetime.
You won’t marry each one of them.
Some will be much older than you. Some will not be in a position to pair up with you. Some will be your same gender. This is a deviation from the way a lot of people think. I’m just saying. There is nothing lost in the universe. The same thing goes with soul mates. You may or may not actually meet a soul mate during your life. How do you tell? Well, you have to decide. A psychic might say you are pretty close to another person, and even be able to tell that you come from the same place (in Heaven), but it’s anybody’s guess as to whether that is your soul mate.
I am of the opinion that my husband and I are likely soul mates. I’ve done a past life regression where he turned up, but that also might just be fast friends traveling through lifetimes together. I am not a professional. I don’t pretend to be, but I do have a glimmer of understanding of how it might work.
My guide once told me when I asked him where all the souls came from. What have they been doing since the beginning of time and evolution? He asked me to imagine the universe of souls as a pot of soup that has stood on a low heat for a while. Time enough for the fat to have risen to the surface of the soup to collect into one big circle. Then, he said to imagine that you plunge a spoon into the soup and begin to stir. That big blob of grease is disrupted and scatters all over the surface of the soup into tiny balls. There is the oversoul, a body of one, and then when you stir the soup, there are the members of the oversoul, us.
It will probably cost you some money, but I would pay money for a psychic reading, within reason, and just get a couple of readings to see what people are talking about. Besides, what greater topic of conversation at the next party can you come up with? If you’ve got a lot of dough on hand, you could schedule a reading with somebody famous like Theresa Caputo, The Long Island Psychic, or Tyler Henry, a young psychic out of Los Angeles. I wouldn’t. I don’t have that kind of money.
Interestingly enough, at the beginning of my spiritual journey, I went to a number of psychics just to hear what they had to say to me. We did not have a lot of money in those days, and as time went on, I began to worry that I was spending too much money. That’s when I decided to learn how to be a psychic. I’d forgotten about the money. Best decision I ever made.
But those psychic readings I got served to be how I decided what sort of psychic I was going to be. There weren’t many schools around in those days to train us. Maybe it’s the same now, but the same principle holds: You learn from each and every teacher you’ve ever had.
The benefit of having a couple of readings close in time to each other is to see if there might be a common thread present in either of them. To compare, you only need two. But, on the off chance they are either both good or both bad, I would try a third one, too. You also want a comparison of a good versus a bad psychic reading.
What is it going to cost you? Ah, $5, $35, $45, or maybe $50. I would really think about it hard if it was much more than $50 for your first readings. However, I’ve known some really good psychics who charge $75 for a reading. I would steer away from $5 readings. I had one once and couldn’t get to the door fast enough. That was where the lady said for more money, she would remove a curse I’d had placed on me. For even more money, she could tell me who had placed the curse. That was, in my opinion, a bad reading.
I eventually charged $75 for the readings I gave. I didn’t start out that high, but it helps to weed out the riffraff to charge the higher price. That’s just something I learned along the way. This is true of whatever you are doing. People just tend to believe quality stuff is always more expensive stuff. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it is not. Use that to your advantage.
As I got more and more comfortable being a psychic and giving readings, I would not flinch at paying even $125 to get a reading for myself. Hey, stuff just got more expensive, and I know personally what is entailed in giving a reading. Psychics have to pay their rent the same as anybody else. I can get physically ill sometimes by giving a psychic reading. A more experienced psychic would have gotten past that, but yeah, sometimes my stomach hurts. Sometimes, I get breathless and dizzy. It just depends on how deep into a trance I am going to go. I would describe myself as usually going into a light trance.
If my husband comes in to say something to me while I am channeling at my computer, I will scream bloody murder. He should know when I’ve got my headphones on, and my eyes closed that I’m busy. Anyway, I’ve been doing that for years, and I doubt that will stop. A screaming psychic. What a sight. Actually, I do that when I’m writing, too. It’s why I’ve faced my desk so that I can see whoever is standing in the doorway. It doesn’t help if my eyes are closed, but that’s my problem.
I actually used to scream bloody murder at work, too. My boss thought it was really funny until I did it to him one day. He never frightened me again, which led me to believe he might have been doing it on purpose. I was the HR department in those days, so there was nobody to complain to except him. This is also good feng shui in the kitchen to put a mirror on the wall behind the stove. It’s not good to startle the cook. No telling what dinner will taste like. A screaming cook with a bowl of pepper in their hands.
My psychic readings were always done on the Internet. I’ve never done them at fairs, though I have occasionally done them face-to-face with people. If it is an in-person reading, I close my eyes, and Spirit speaks. The problem I’ve encountered lately is a gentleman, a friend of the family, who doesn’t take notes and thinks I would remember what Spirit has said. Sometimes I do. Most times I don’t. Note to self: For any more in-person readings, tell the person to record the conversation or take notes.
So, my readings were always done with a question and at least their first name. I didn’t want to know last names or birthdates. In those days, the internet was new, and there was no looking people up on Google. Google hadn’t been invented yet. It was just the information they were willing to tell me. So, if you think about it, those might be the tougher reads. Anyway, they asked their questions, I went into a channeling mode, and for the next 3 hours, I channeled, answering their emailed request via my computer keyboard. It wasn’t solid channeling, but it was always lengthy and was presented to them in a text document. I am most comfortable channeling by taking dictation. Spirit speaks. I type. It’s as fast as I can type, though I am not typing fast.
I still have copies of those readings, and I still have all the reviews those folks gave me. Haven’t used the reviews in years, but someday I might find a use for them. So, at $75 a reading, I made $25 an hour giving those readings. It was more than what I made at my day job at the time. Although, I did not make a great deal of money doing it. But it was more than I make writing at Medium.
The ones that were the most difficult for me were the people who asked the same questions over and over again. Each time they asked, they expected a different answer, and we all know what that is the definition of. But still, they were there. If it got to be too many times, I just said I couldn’t channel for them anymore. You get the reading. You get maybe one or two more times of follow-up where I would not charge them, and after that, we are done. I did not want to be responsible for some old lady racking up thousands of dollars’ worth of psychic readings. Though we are not regulated as a group, I have my own standards, and fleecing people is not my style.
In the beginning? I gave away a whole lot of free readings so I could learn how to do it and gain more confidence.
Nowadays, I am more into helping other people learn to channel and ride the wild wind themselves. And someday, there will be a book I’ve written out there. Until then, I write my articles.
What I would look for if I wanted to get a psychic reading would be glowing online reviews. Sometimes, I will treat myself to a psychic reading from somebody I don’t know. I consider it to be part of my professional education. In those days, that’s pretty much all we had unless you were going to spend time at an ashram or trek into the jungle or mountains looking for a shaman or a priest.
I know that a fellow psychic doesn’t need to see me, hear my voice, or know my name because of all the psychic work I did in the days of the young internet. I know I’ll be spending at least $75 for one since I’ve had so many of them myself that would be my own price point.
In fact, I might be due for my own psychic reading from another psychic. It’s been a few years. I would ask for a general reading. These days, I might ask if I’ll ever be published, but otherwise? Just a general reading is fine. I don’t want to lead them anywhere. I want them to tell me what they sense, what they see, what they hear. That’s what I would want from a psychic reading.
This article started getting too long. So, I split it into two, and the second article is here:
