Psychics, Mediums, Readers...Is This For Real? Five Ways To Tell

October has always been my favorite time of year. In my teenage years, my friends and I would gather to embrace the magic and mystery of the Halloween season by playing with Ouiji boards, pulling Tarot cards for each other, and visiting psychics and mediums. Since we were always low on funds, our visits were limited to the $10 readers you see in movies: older women with heavy eyeliner who hovered over a crystal ball, telling us vague details that could have pertained to anyone at all. Did you know that someday I'm going to take a trip somewhere, and within the next five years I'm going to experience some changes in my life?

Later in life, I befriended a woman who eventually revealed that she was a psychic, and also saw dead people. My natural skepticism slowly evaporated as she gave me messages from a friend who had passed away ten years before. She described his looks, his voice, the way he sat, and the expressions he used. Despite my natural skepticism, I realized that there was no possible way to know these intimate details. She was a responsible, level-headed person, and she had nothing to gain from sharing the news about her gift of being able to communicate with the dead.

Meeting her sent me on a voyage of curiosity to discover other people with these types of gifts. I began to experiment with all types of psychics, mediums, readers and healers. Not all of my experiences were positive. But many of these sessions were specific, accurate, enlightening, and most of all, healing. The best sessions I had left me a better version of the person I was before. I would often leave these meetings more hopeful, more inspired, with a sense of direction and inner peace.

I had to wade through a LOT of muck in the process. It taught me to distinguish between those who have authentic gifts, and those who are predators and charlatans.

I implore anyone who is interested in hiring someone in this area to do their research. Here are a few tips to help you separate the professionals from the charlatans:

1. A professional will never reach out to you to get your business. If someone contacts you out of the blue to sell you a reading, beware.

2. A professional will never lure you into a purchase by inciting fear. There are plenty of frauds out there who will tell you that you need to pay them to remove a curse, or that they see something bad happening to you and can only tell you what it is if you book a session with them. Don't fall for it. It's a scam.

3. A professional will not ask you for a lot of personal information before your session. If you have already given them all the details of your life, what is it that you are paying them for?

4. A professional will not ask a lot of leading questions during the session. The best readers that I've met have told me not to say anything at all during the session, because they don't want to be led by my answers.

5. Lastly, and most importantly, a good reader will leave you in a better place than you were when you came in. A great reading should be therapeutic. It should leave you feeling positive, powerful, optimistic, or connected to something greater than yourself.

Have you had a psychic reading before? What was your experience like?