How Psychic Powers Work (a blog post, not a definitive guide 🙂)
When our collective agrees that psychic powers are inexplicable by natural laws, I have to interject and add, “inexplicable by natural laws for which we currently understand.” Psychic powers are a part of natural laws, too, and physics is getting closer and closer to explaining it.
I have been shy to share this truth about myself for decades and have hid in plain sight. One of the many reasons I have been reticent to say that I am psychic or a medium is because there have been multiple occasions in which individuals have challenged me upon hearing that I am psychic by jumping out with statements like, " Yeah, what am I thinking right now?”
First of all, being posed with a challenge like this is offensive. It is basically calling someone (me) out, through a “prove it” scenario, as not being the thing they say they are. It is saying, “I want proof right now, and you have to jump through this hoop to prove it, or you are a liar.” Do people do this to creatives or athletes? “Oh, you’re a guitarist? Get out your guitar and play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for me right now.” It’s ridiculous to think someone would do this, but it points to two things that one of my challengers is immediately revealing to me: They don’t believe in my set of abilities, and they think I am crazy.
I have had people claim that they want to believe, however, their resistance to the idea that amy of it is real (disbelief) is the very bar to their being able to experience things that would challenge their own beliefs.
Not only does their challenge feel like a game, one that I had better win or else, but it is a game that I cannot win. If in a challenging moment such as this I felt like I was dealing with someone who is open to expanding their reality and new understandings on a spiritual level, I would share the following.
When we talk about any “powers,” “gifts,” and all of the other things that boil down to otherworldly and/or psychic abilities, what we are really talking about is being aware of subtle energy.
The reason why psychic powers don't work the same way for all psychics is because we are picking up on all kinds of energies in a field of energy, which I often describe as the Sea of Life Energy. It takes intentional practice, years of intentional practice, to learn to hone any skill set, including the skill of reading energies that are not immediately obvious to our senses.
Another reason that psychic powers do not work the same between psychics is that, just as with painters, each with their own style born of their own creative flow and mind, so too are psychics each unique in their very essence, essence given to us by the Creator, producing different styles and strengths when picking up on and reading energies.
In reading energy, one of the major things that we must begin to master through disciplining our energy “feelers” encompasses the idea of “What are my own thoughts versus what are the thoughts of other people? What are my thoughts versus the messages coming in from my guides, angels, and so forth?”
For many who are mediums, as well as empaths, coming to understand and hone this skill can be frustrating and hard because to be a conduit for everything that presents itself in the field is hard. Imagine a radio receiver that picks up all transmissions but cannot separate them out into channels. For anyone listening to the radio, that would be a cacophony of noise and chatter - hard on the ears and the nerves, and impossible to understand. They would probably turn it off. Well, psychics can try to turn “it” off (me having been one of them), but we can never completely turn it off. Yes, we can reduce what is coming in, but as long as we are around people and situations, energies are still merging with ours, impacting us. Energies still bleed through.
5. Being able to tell you what you're thinking right now would be an example of telepathy.
While I do have telepathic moments often, I do not control them. I pick up on energies and thoughts, and apparently I transmit them because people will say the exact thing I'm thinking sometimes. While I would like to control this, I don’t.
6. My guides have explained to me that we are given messages only for what we are needing to understand in the moment, timely information.
This is in part for our own protection, so that we don't have information that can harm us in some way, leading to sabotaging some aspect of our life because we know something is coming. I consider it a kindness that guides and angels are very kind in filtering. I am at peace with that now, but I did not always want it that way. With my growing experience in working with the spiritual realm, as well as with maturing, I see what a kindness it is.
7. We come to Earth to learn from lessons and experiences. If we were given too much information, there are a few things that can happen.
First, we can become overwhelmed with all that is coming in. As humans, we need time to process and integrate new learning. To have a store of information dumped on us would impede that ability to process and integrate deeply.Second, if we are given too much of certain kind of information, it could break us. In fact, it might feel more like having a load of sand dropped on us, crushingly heavy and suffocating. An example for me would be in the slow revealing of a series of past lives wherein I acted and suffered in various ways. I needed the learning from each of them, so they were revealed over time. Had they all come in at the same time, I would have not been able to soak up all of the learnings from those life times into my awareness enough to have them be a benefit now . . . and the impact of the collection of suffering would have been devastating.
Finally, our systems of belief - about ourselves, life, our relationships, the spiritual - are tender, especially in their shifting. The fragility of beliefs leads to a careful and responsible sharing of what is needed to shift and grow our beliefs over time by our angels and guides. If we had ten years of information dropped on us at one time, downloads too big to handle, the result is shut down, or insanity. For instance, if I had been told I would be doing what I am today 10 years ago - a shamanic practitioner, reading tarot, energy healing - I would have laughed. I was nowhere ready for that information. Had I received it, my lack of belief and scoffing might well have created a permanent bar in my belief system that might have led to me blocking it from coming in at all.
Our guides and angels are indeed guiding us through our lives, talking to us, trying desperately to get our attention at times, and dispensing what we need exactly when we need it - not too little, not too much. It is something that I am grateful for, being one who has had one major shift that indeed annihilated me - my Dark Night of the Soul. There would have been a point of no return for me had there been much more added to the experience I was having at that time.
8. In working with others through tarot and/or energy healing, I am given only what I need to know about my client in the moment for the sake of working with my client. But that is only after receiving my client’s permission. It turns out that there is a code of ethics by which we are expected to abide when engaging in all spiritual work, just as it is in any other work.
It begins with this: Everyone has free will, and an integral piece of not accruing karma is receiving permission to talk to their spirit team, to receive messaging pertaining to their life, and to do general healing on them. To do any of this without their express permission would be an invasion of their privacy and unethical. I feel strongly about this, and the older I get, the more so, and the more I disagree with people trying to influence others through whatever forms of mystical practices they may be using.
I find it interesting that sometimes, even when a client gives permission for me to do healing work on them, in the end, whether or not they are healed is not up to me or even their conscious selves. I believe we have blueprints that we come into life with, and we have exit points (points at which we could die) that our Higher Selves and our spirit teams understand and will guide us too. If we are not meant to heal, no intended healing by that person or another is going to work.
9. As a part of the code of ethics that I mentioned, I feel a great responsibility in what I share when doing any reading for anyone. Many messages are coming in, and I must decide what to bring forth and how to say it. I am well aware that words carry power. They can be seeds or thorns that benefit or poison someone’s perception of their life and all resulting actions. It is a huge responsibility. I take it seriously.
Note: Tarot readings do not tell the future. The only thing a tarot reader, or any other diviner, can do is to read energies as they are in the moment of the reading. The minute my client walks out the door and begins living their lives, that moment of suspended energy evaporates. So what good is it? The power a good reading holds is that it can steer talking and acting in life in more positive directions as we act with free will to manifest our lives.
10. When it comes to energy work, so as not to accrue more karma, the only things I will do without permission are 1) sending bursts of love, blessings, thanks, forgiveness, apology, and 2) channeling what I call “lightning bolt healings” that happen rarely with certain individuals.
Lightning bolt healings are healings that I am guided to perform with very direct messaging from the angels. I become the conduit of intention to guide their healing light through an individual, always from a distance. Angel light, being like electricity, moves like a lightning bolt. This energy is intelligent and knows exactly where to go, so my role in the work is intention that draws it into the physical plane. Observing one of these healings is nothing short of magical.
11. Finally, in my shamanic training, my teacher stated something that resonated deeply with me because it is what my own guides have told me: “If someone is not a believer, nothing is going to happen for them.” Being non-believing is ultimately a matter of free will.
When someone is non-believing they are essentially closing the door, locking it, dead bolting it, barring it, preventing anything from happening for them. Again, it boils down to energy. Their belief is their sole barrier. Earlier, I mentioned that psychic flow can’t be completely cut off - for one who has experienced psychic phenomena. While they may decide they want nothing to do with it, they do believe in it - they know it is real.
Even so, every individual born into this world has a spirit team that is trying to guide them to their spiritual nature and abilities. So people who are not believers will still occasionally have strange happenings occur, synchronicities, and the repetition of numbers, words, even songs come into their lives as a means of trying to begin to shift their beliefs. Until they're ready, most will claim that they are random occurrences. I have found that, in most cases of skeptics, people are afraid of giving up control because, in handing one’s self over to a spiritual reality, we have to surrender to it, and that means letting go and finally understanding that we do not hold the reins as much as we think we do. We never did.
In order to access psychic abilities, you have to believe in the abilities. After all, if one believes that they cannot play an instrument, how likely are they to try it? Just as playing an instrument is a skill developed, so are psychic abilities. But, there is a spiritual element to it. When I tap into energies, I no doubt connect with Spirit, angels, and my guides. Again, if one does not believe, then they will not be able to access connections such as these, which are a natural part of the experience.
I have also been reticent to reveal that I have any abilities throughout my life because our culture has been trained to believe that people with abilities are crazy, even though their very own Savior (speaking of Christian culture here) had abilities. It is ironic to think that people who believed in Jesus’ abilities would punish others with abilities. Anyway, it has traditionally been dangerous to set oneself apart in such a unique way. How many people have been disempowered by being taught that they do not have abilities when they do?
Until the broad acceptance of psychic “powers” comes about, my kind will continue to find persecution, as has been the case throughout time. We like to think we are past Salem witch trial mentality, and yet there are those who would call me a Satanist for having “powers” and being a shaman when it is these very aspects of myself that create a direct connection with the Divine. While it may be true that I will not be burned on a stake, I have had a deep fear of being persecuted because I have eyes and ears and have watched people talk about and judge those who have abilities of many kinds. It is a thing.
However, I also have been able to trace my deep fear of persecution to past life times wherein I was a target and victim, suffering horrifically. I am thankful to be able to say that I have been able to do much healing of those past life traumas, greatly reducing my own fear now. So, while I still feel the need to be cautious in this life because of practical concerns, not of being tortured to death, but of suffering slings and arrows and possible consequences that impact my quality of life, I am choosing to show up, to be seen, and to be me, which includes owning my abilities (natural skills) that will benefit others, which I have accepted as a part of my purpose. In doing so, it is my hope that others will begin to own theirs as well. As masses awaken and own their realities, may the tides of persecution shift to tides of open acceptance.
Ⓒ S’Tara Merit, 2024.














