This seemed a good time to define a few terms about meditation and other things we can do with our minds. It used to be that meditating was the "cool" thing to do. Now, everyone wants to channel and be a medium. I find it encouraging to know that so many people are interested in exploring what they can do. I find it depressing past expressing how much really bad information is out there, due in part because people don't know what they are talking about, and in part because others think it is a bad thing to wave the bs flag or advise someone to seek medical or mental health assistance. You do no one any favors by lying or being polite, or hiding behind your monitor and pretending to be an expert. You can really hurt people playing games like that.

Meditation is simply emptying your mind of concerns and resting in the silence of your spirit within. That is the simplest definition. It can take a while to conquer the mind monkeys - our tendency to always be thinking, always have something going on mentally. Back in the 70s there was a lot of uproar against doing this, as being a (bad) Eastern practice, or that my leaving your mind empty and quiet, you were leaving an open door for demons. I lived those days and meditated then and heard it all. I did alright.

What does it do for you? It was like a power nap, when I got good at it, I could meditate for 15 minutes and feel more mentally alert and even sometimes would stand up and discover an issue I had been wrestling with suddenly seemed easier now to solve, as if while I had not been thinking, the answer had come and waited to be seen. Over time, once I had the discipline to not think about the day or the issues or things, just relax and float, I sensed my energy and started to work with it and learned about the chakras and how to open those and flow more energy. There is a lot more information out there for you about chakras today than I had access to then, but, I would advise you to choose your sources with care and avoid religious related ones unless you adhere to that specific religion. There is no need to blur your personal paradigm as you work on yourself by mixing sources indiscriminately. You do not need a mantra, you do not need a mat or anything special, no need to buy anything either. Just find a quiet place you feel safe in and sit down and do it your way. If you like the mantras and having a special mat and adding in yoga and more, feel free, just know you do not need anything but yourself and a quiet place to do this.

I recently read a very distressing post on another forum from a poster who was obviously confused and had a lot of wrong ideas about the mind and how this works. Let me just be really clear here and simply tell you that nobody else can read your mind, you are quite safe and private within your mind, and alone there. The devil can't hear your thoughts, nor can the nutters claiming they can either. Period.

Telepathy is an ability to send your thoughts as in a message to someone else.  This is not an ability I ever worked with and I am not expert on it, though I know when my wife leaves work to start her drive home and she knows when I need her to call me when she has a break. This is a natural bond we have, nothing we worked on. Real telepathy is like that but willed, as I understand it, and can be more involved. It still is not a case of others with this ability being able to read your mind and needing you to develop some elaborate blocking techniques or defenses. Do not let people scare you with such silliness. Also do not confuse this with Meditation or anything else. Find a real teacher to help you learn this right if it really is what you want to do. The real ones aren't common. I know of one. He is who I would go to on anything I needed to know more about this. 

Channeling is really popular right now and a lot of young people are out there trying to do this right out of the chute and it is a sad thing to observe. I am not sure they really understand what it is they are trying to do, or the consequences of doing it wrongly. Way back when I was a kid, long distance phone calls cost a great deal of money. When we called that way we made sure of the number and we paid attention how long we talked to Grandma or our friends. It was not like it is now where a misdial on the cell is no big deal and usually free anyway. Channeling is like long distance calls used to be. Your psychic senses are the phone line in a way, and you are allowing another entity to communicate through your line. 

To keep this simple, some of them are dirty, some will cost a lot more than you budgeted for. A lot of it can be your own self doing it and this can cause you actual mental health issues. It is not worth doing wrong to seem cool to your friends or let yourself fantasize that you somehow have a special ability which actually is just make believe. Most real, successful channels I know are already very good at meditation, they already are mature in that skill, and they "call" only one spirit they know well and personally. It is best treated like a sacred relationship by you, kept for your special contact or two. It is a disastrous and reckless foolishness to simply open up to whatever is out there and willing to talk. Trash in, trash out. Unfortunately, the trash piles up inside your head. It is really sad to see someone who wanted so badly to contact spirit but ends up deluded and convinced of lies and fantasies and messes their life up with this sort of thing. Do not encourage your friends along this sad road, and above all take personal responsibility and do not allow yourself to run along that highway, either. If in doubt, shut it down. Do not become pathetic that way. You can actually hurt yourself playing with this wrongly and letting yourself become deluded. It can lead to depression and even suicide in some people. Do not play, do not encourage your friends to play. Get real answers and talk to people who know about this for real, not kids posting on forums. Please, I beg you. 

"But, Not A Rockstar, I don't know a spirit to talk with!" Then you do not need to be doing this. Spirits are not equal and the good ones, the safe ones, are not hanging out bored and waiting to chat.

Mediumship is also really hot these days. If Hollywood pushes it on TV, then everyone wants to do it. There are some real mediums out there, but there are a ton of fakes. I am not doing spirit a disservice to ask you to research cold reading as aggressively as you research mediumship. Educate yourself on what fakes do and how they fake out really smart people. This will help you recognize when you run into the real deal. 

Let me explain something. If you have a genuine gift and a real calling to use it for people, you will have the help spiritually to find teachers and the right way to begin working with it and learning how to do it right. In the past week alone I have to counsel three different young people who believed they were to be talking with the dead, believed they saw them and got messages as well. All three have been under the care of psychiatrists and are still sneaking out trying to find a way to do this, and they are mistaken. All three deeply fear death or have tremendous personal troubles and issues and can barely handle reality and I have to tell you, this is not the qualities a true medium or psychic has. They are suffering a terrible delusion. This is not funny and I am really sad because I fear they will move on to another advisor until they find one more than happy to jack off their own ego playing advisor and saying what these ill people wish to hear and never face the truth they are damaging people and can actually be responsible for landing them into depression or mental issues that could even lead to suicide. 

Viewing is a generalized ability I just call that. When I needed a word for what I occasionally do, it fit better than psychic or medium or remote viewer or reader. I am a jack of most trades that way. Years ago I used to use tarot cards but anymore I don't use anything. Once in a while a friend or old client will call and ask for a reading or some advice and it kicks in. It can be a blend of any of the "clairs" (voyance, audience, sentience), it can be remote viewing, it can involve someone who has died, it might include one of my spirit contacts stepping closer to be channeled. Or, it might not kick in at all and I have nothing for them but the advice of a friend. I do not give readings as such anymore. I did for a while and made good money at it, but I stopped as too many want to call weekly instead of learning how to live their own lives and it is like enabling an alcoholic to me. I want no part of that karma. 

I think this is what most working psychics actually do, a blend of different things as they work. Workers who have matured into it don't even think of these things as separate as it just flows and feels natural and I think it is. I think most of it is natural to some more than others.

The real challenge is to accept personal responsibility for yourself and insist on reality in your efforts to develop these sorts of abilities. If what you get is not true, if it is not good or helpful or to the point, if you feel off or depressed or scattered, stop. Find a solid advisor. Ask for help. It does not come easy or fast. I have been doing this for over five decades and am still learning. You do not pick what you want to be good at. You find out if you are good at something and then work with that.

I hope this helps someone trying to sort out the truth from the bs out there. No, I won't give you a reading :).

I write to serve.