Learning the difference between a psychic and medium is not complicated. The best way to remember it is by telling yourself that every medium is a psychic, but not every psychic is a medium.
Psychic is a broad term. It is used to describe anyone that makes use of what most consider to be “special” gifts or abilities.
The truth is, all people are born with psychic abilities. Thus, they really can’t be considered gifts. Any person who studies psychic development quickly learns this.
So What is Mediumship?
One of those abilities is mediumship. This is the ability to communicate with dead people.
A medium specializes in talking to people who have passed on from the physical world into the spirit realm. These people are usually relatives or close friends.
The main task of the medium is to provide validation and proof of afterlife existence. This is done through using symbolism, psychic senses, and emotions to convey messages to those in the living from the one in spirit.
For example, the medium may identify the month of death, the first name, how the person died, a favorite color, a favorite memory, a physical description, a personality trait, and so forth.
Many times mediums also pass along messages from those in spirit. This could be a simple “I love you” to something much more complicated and complex.
Most mediums make use of the psychic abilities of telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, empathy, and others to receive and pass along those messages.
An example of a psychic medium would be John Edward.
George Anderson is the exception to our rules. George Anderson is a medium who claims he is not psychic. This puts a bit of a different spin on things and reminds us that there will always be exceptions.
Psychic or Medium? What are the Different Types of Psychics?
Other types of psychics include…
- health intuitive
- psychic tarot readers
- psychic astrologers
- psychic channels
- pet psychics
- future-oriented psychics
- post-cognitive psychics
- psychic detectives
- psychic healers
- a whole range of other kinds of psychics.
What is a health intuitive? A health intuitive specializes in passing along medical information including reasons and cures for illnesses.
Edgar Cayce was actually a remarkably good health intuitive despite the fact he did many of his sessions “asleep.” Most psychics will not try to provide health-related information due to medical laws. This is another reason such psychics are considered highly specialized.
A psychic tarot reader and psychic astrologer specialize in using a certain type of “tool” to pass along information to clients. This information may be about the past, present, or future. It may also involve divination. Divination is the art of getting information to help answer a question.
It’s important to understand that not every astrologer or tarot card reader will use psychic abilities. It’s possible to do any form of divination without the aid of psychic abilities. So you don’t have to be psychic to be able to be a great tarot card reader or astrologer. Psychic abilities can, however, enhance such sessions.
What is a psychic channel? Psychic channels specialize in getting information from spiritual guides and/or angels and sometimes dead people. Unlike a medium, however, they don’t try to validate existence of the afterlife, rather they pass along information which the spirit guide, angel, or deceased person believes to be important to the client.
Doreen Virtue, when she was still doing angel readings, would be a good example of a psychic channel who connects with angels.
Pet psychics use their abilities to communicate with animals. They provide information to the owners from the animal and from the owner to the animal.
Future-oriented psychics, sometimes called fortunetellers, predict the future – many times several years in the future. Some as many as 15-20 years or more. Most today believe in free will and not total predestination. Nostradamus would fall into this category.
A post-cognitive psychic specializes in seeing into the past. Some use psychometry – a method of getting information through touch – and others tap into different abilities to get information. The information deals with what has already happened, not what’s going to happen.
A psychic detective uses their abilities to try to help solve crimes. Most are not as successful as they claim. There have been a few exceptions in history. Sylvia Browne claimed at times be a psychic detective, but much of the psychic detective work she did went unproven or served little importance.
A psychic healer taps into energy to use it to heal. Sometimes this happens on the physical level, but often it is the emotional, mental, or spiritual levels where the healing takes place. Most Reiki practitioners could be considered psychic healers. Many times they also intuitively know what’s wrong and why certain conditions are occurring.
The fact is, there are a lot of different types of psychics in the world!
Almost all psychics will make use of one or more psychic abilities. Let’s now discuss the different types of psychic abilities.
What are the Different Types of Psychic Abilities?
Clairvoyance means clear seeing. It is the ability to see energy or visions. Sometimes remote viewing is also tied to this ability.
Clairaudience means clear hearing. It is the ability to hear spirit voices or the voices of other people when not in their physical presence.
Clairsentience means clear sensing. It is the ability to feel or project pains or sensations of someone’s body within your own physical body.
The ability to feel or project emotions is called empathy.
Telepathy is, at the most basic level, the ability of mind to mind communication. It is often times confused with clairaudience. Telepathy operates on a mental level and clairaudience operates on a physical level. I.E., a clairaudient will literally hear things with their ears that other people don’t perceive.
Psychometry is a sub-skill linked to the other psychic abilities. It involves touching an object and getting impressions about the object or the person who has been in contact with the object. This is sometimes called vibaturgy because the psychic is connecting with vibrations.
Many psychics that claim to be palmist are actually expert psychometrist. By touching a person’s hand they connect with their vibrations and read it. This, of course, is not real palmistry. Real palmistry is looking at the hand and analyzing the shape of the hand and fingers along with the lines on the hand.
There are others besides these, but these give you a great starting point for understanding the various types of psychic abilities.
Hopefully, at this point, you now understand the difference between a psychic and medium and you have more knowledge of the different types of psychics in our world.
