I was reading recently about a medical breakthrough where science has discovered a new way to predict mortality. Apparently, doctors can now run a blood test that determines the statistical likelihood of a patient dying within the next five years.
Personally, I am skeptical about putting total faith in that kind of absolute timeline. It feels far more likely that the test identifies significant, underlying health problems that must be dealt with immediately. Regardless of how it works, the development is making a lot of headlines right now.
It also highlights a question that many of my clients and students have asked—and will undoubtedly continue to ask in the future: “Can you predict death?”
This is a deeply complicated topic. It requires nuance and discussion rather than a rigid, straightforward answer. Still, for those who prefer the bottom line, let’s start there.
The Straightforward Answer
Can a psychic predict death? The short answer is: Maybe. Sometimes. But usually, no.
What makes this question so incredibly complicated is the element of free will. In my experience, most people transition when they are ready. While there are always sudden or tragic exceptions, many people pass away when they have made peace with their departure, often close to their birthday. This is typically the case with natural transitions, which require immense spiritual and physical alignment.
Free will can do marvelous, unpredictable things. A strong will can spur a person into living far longer than medical science believes they should. Conversely, emotional or spiritual despair can take an otherwise healthy person and bring them to a point of total physical collapse or terminal illness in a remarkably short period of time.
Ultimately, the exact moment of transition is known only to a higher power. Whether you call that energy God, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Universal Consciousness, the Architect of the Universe, or something else entirely, it is the only authority that truly holds the master timeline.
Early Career Lessons: The Symbol of the Gun
Despite the rarity of these insights, there have been three distinct occasions in my career where I predicted a transition during a session.
The first occurred very early in my practice with a regular client who came in for a routine session. He didn’t quite seem like himself that day. Toward the end of the reading, a specific symbol of a gun appeared to me, and I described it to him in vivid detail. When I asked if he recognized it, he said no, and we wrapped up the session.
About two months later, a mutual friend came to see me privately. He revealed that my client had tragically taken his own life about two weeks after our meeting. The weapon he used perfectly matched the description I had given. Because I recorded all my sessions back then, the friend had found the tape, listened to it, and realized exactly what my impressions were trying to do: I was receiving a warning of a future suicide attempt, but at the time, I didn’t recognize the signs.
That was a massive turning point for me. From that day forward, I learned to never shy away from the blunt, vital question if I suspect someone is in crisis: “Have you been thinking about hurting yourself?” I actively encourage my students to have the courage to ask this question. It saves lives.
The Mistake of Holding Back Information
Not long after that, I was conducting a Tarot session for a close friend. A very specific card configuration appeared—the Three of Swords combined with the Ten of Swords—showing up in roughly a six-month future position. Even early in my career, I knew this specific combination could represent a sudden physical crisis, like a heart attack.
At the time, I operated under the flawed belief that “what a person doesn’t know can’t hurt them.” I chose to keep the information to myself and focused instead on the highly positive aspects of the rest of the reading.
A year passed before I heard from him again. When we finally reconnected, I discovered that almost exactly six months after our session, his father had passed away from a sudden heart attack.
To this day, I wonder if that tragedy could have been prevented if I had simply shared what I saw. He still has no idea that those cards appeared, and I doubt I will ever tell him. But that experience permanently altered my practice. I resolved right then and there never to hold back vital information again.
I strongly teach my students that when someone asks for your professional guidance, you owe them absolute honesty. You never know what piece of information might save a life or allow someone to prepare. Of course, there is a right way and a wrong way to deliver heavy news. Understanding the psychology of a reading and how our words impact a client is a crucial part of the training.
Understanding Our Limits
While it is vital to reveal what we see, we must also accept that we cannot prevent everything. Metaphysical awareness allows us to prepare, handle, and navigate life’s shifts, but it does not make us responsible for outcomes beyond our control.
Years after the situation with my friend, the exact same heart attack configuration appeared for a different client. Remembering the past lesson, I didn’t hesitate. I told her directly that she needed to schedule an immediate checkup with her doctor, explaining exactly what that card combination had meant in my past experience, and that it was showing up in the immediate 10-to-14-day window.
She laughed it off, insisting she was the healthiest person she knew. I shrugged, respecting her autonomy, and left it there.
Later, her son contacted me. His mother had suffered a massive heart attack just a week after our session. Fortunately, she survived. She credits her survival entirely to our reading, stating that because the warning was fresh in her mind, she recognized the symptoms instantly and called for emergency help. While I keep my own ego out of it, I am incredibly grateful that this story had a happier ending.
The Metaphysical Rules of Transition
Different esoteric disciplines have their own specific methodologies for handling the topic of death.
In astrology, for example, it is a well-established principle that you rarely read a person’s demise directly in their own natal chart. Instead, you look at the charts of the people closest to them. If you want to look at the longevity or potential transition of a parent, you examine the charts of their spouse, children, and immediate family. You look for overlapping transits and progressions that indicate a profound, shared experience of loss or major structural shift.
There is also a highly specialized, rare branch of practice known as After-Life Astrology. This involves casting a chart for the exact time and date of a person’s passing. It is a beautiful tool used to counsel grieving families, identify the spiritual factors leading up to the transition, and understand what the soul is experiencing as it crosses over.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that while predicting transition is possible, it is incredibly rare. An intuitive is far more likely to receive impressions regarding an upcoming illness, a hospital visit, or a major lifestyle shift than a locked-in date of death. Free will, personal self-awareness, and divine timing ultimately dictate when our time in the physical world comes to a close.
Interestingly, it is far more common for people to pick up on transitions after they happen rather than before. Countless students and clients have shared stories of waking up suddenly in the middle of the night with an absolute, undeniable inner knowledge that a loved one has just crossed over.
Navigating these topics requires immense responsibility, but looking at them honestly strips away the fear and allows us to support one another through the natural cycles of life, death, and grief.
