The Art of Intuition

To know ourselves truly, to acknowledge our uniqueness, we need to be known and acknowledged by others for who we are. We cannot find the way to true freedom and life in secrecy. We need loving and caring friends with whom we can speak from the depth of our heart.

F. Reed Brown tells how a man once came to him for a reading, already disdainful, skeptical, and searching for the signs of fraud. Who knows why he came for the reading in the first place, given his distaste? Perhaps his wife sent him. Perhaps he was intent on uncovering a fraud. He was a Civil War historian, and during the reading, the spirits of one Civil War soldier after another appeared, Union and Confederate, offering their names and how and where they died, while the client grimaced, sneered, and tossed his head.

“What a waste,” Brown commented. “Here he was, an historian, given the crown jewels of research. All he had to do was go look up the Civil War records to find out if the names and material were for real. Instead he grabbed his tape and left in a huff.”

He played the tape of the session, on which Brown could be heard talking, when suddenly a different voice interrupted: “Listen to him, Sidney. He’s trying to tell you something!”

“How did you do that?” he shouted. Defiant, suspicious, angry at not receiving the explanation of fraud that he demanded, he asked to examine the office while Brown went to lunch.

When Dr. Brown returned from lunch he found his office trashed: drawers pulled out, papers strewn over the floor, the pictures torn from the walls, everything helter-skelter. The skeptic found none of the wires or devices he expected.

WHEN YOU COME for a reading, it’s incumbent on you to be respectful. Out of courtesy, you should be on time and follow whatever directions you are given by the psychic, intuitive, or medium. You should attend to the reading with dignity. I’m not telling you to set aside your gifts of critical judgment. If the reading doesn’t ring true or feel “right,” if the psychic sends bad vibes, if your intuition starts clanging warning bells and waving lanterns up and down the tracks to stop the oncoming train wreck, then get up, even in the middle of the reading, and leave! Trust your gut. Pay and depart. You’re under no obligation to stay.

Especially is this true if you feel the psychic is trying to pull you into additional sessions, to con or frighten you, whether by insisting you return for healing treatments or more readings or for him to cast out demons that he sees in you. Not everyone has moral integrity.

But when the seeker finds a good psychic (and there are many thousands), someone who has been recommended by a friend or by word of mouth, and when in making an appointment you test your intuition, your inner guidance, to ensure the psychic or medium “feels” right, then treat the practitioner with respect.

Remember that skepticism affects a reading. Just as physicists find the researcher’s attitude influences experiments with subatomic particles, so do your thoughts and ferocious negativity affect the clairvoyant. So please don’t heave great sighs or frown or jiggle or snort in disbelief. If that’s the way you feel, don’t come for a reading!

A second courtesy: The client should leave when the session is over. This is sometimes hard to do. For that full hour you have been “seen” and understood in ways most people rarely experience, and as part of the process you may feel love and approval. The psychic cannot give a reading without conjoining with the client at some deep unconscious level. It’s flattering, seductive. You don’t want to leave. You think up other questions merely to extend the session, to remain in this sacred space a moment more. But unless you are paying for the psychic’s time, it’s not quite fair.

Moreover, the intuitive may likewise be unable to break free easily. Certainly it’s hard to charge for additional time, though this can extend an extra fifteen or twenty or thirty minutes. He has your check in hand; how can he look at his watch and say, “That’ll be another X dollars, please”? In a way, separating after giving a reading is similar to that period after making love when you and your partner float in the embers of each other’s embrace, feeling your energy fields drift and sift, as you slowly pull apart, each into your own physical body. If your partner jumps up brusquely, it feels like tearing a piece of paper in two. In giving a reading you’ve merged at a subconscious level, and afterward you need to come back into your own separate zones, inside your boundaries. Thinking about money at this stage is hard.

I exaggerate perhaps to make my point. But the client’s responsibility at the end of the session is simply to pay and leave. I know one medium who has had such trouble with people departing that now she charges for every five minutes over the initial hour. She’s tough, but she’s learned the hard way how her time and energy can be eaten away by a client wanting more.

I’VE ALSO KNOWN PEOPLE who have asked for readings at inappropriate times. “Oh my gosh! You’re a psychic! Can you give me a reading right now? Here at this dinner party?” They don’t mean to be disrespectful. They speak out of ignorance or playfulness, without understanding the deep subconscious levels into which the psychic sinks when giving a reading.

“I only have one question—this won’t take a minute,” she says, calculating also that it may not cost as much as a full reading either. (No point wasting a whole hour! Not when you only have one teensy question.)

It doesn’t work that way. Most psychics are unable to answer the quickie “just one question” on target (right this minute) with anything better than ordinary commonsense advice—hardly what the client wants. The intuitive doesn’t know what information will come to him, drawn from the deep subconscious levels, and usually a reading covers considerable ground. Some psychics won’t even consider the quickie request: “I don’t do that,” they will say.

Second, use your own intuition. Hold the name of the psychic on your tongue. Taste it. Is it sweet? Is it tart or bitter? Or try one of the methods I use when vacillating between two choices. Go into a prayerful state. Hold out your hands, palm up. Imagine the two choices placed one in each hand. Which is heavier? Darker? Which hand sinks? Which has a lighter, light-struck feel? Which emits a sense of happiness and joy? Choose the lighter, joyful one! Do the same with the names of two psychics: Which one “feels” right? Pray over the decision, asking for the highest good for all concerned. I say this knowing, however, that periods of stress and lack of clarity are exactly those times when your intuition isn’t working well. Which is why you want to consult an intuitive in the first place.

First, look to see if the information given is specific and correct. Second, you judge her life, her surroundings, her words, and thoughts. Look for someone with the highest principles and spiritual aspirations whose purpose is to guide others on their spiritual way. Look for someone who is completely at peace, someone with high ethical and moral standards, wisdom, compassion, and a strong feeling for her clients’ welfare. Look for someone who is happy, serene, fulfilled.

Be sensible. Charlatans and frauds abound. Take the case of Hong Kong’s Nina Wang, one of Asia’s richest women, who died in 2007, leaving her $4 billion fortune not to her family but to the ex-bartender and feng shui expert Tony Chan, who is accused of pretending he could magically extend her life with his secret rituals and supernatural powers. Especially guard against someone trying to get you to throw money at them.