Difference Between Psychic and Medium: Which One Do You Need?

There are some of us who possess an intuition that allows us to tap into the hidden realm way beyond our physical world. These individuals are able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste things that we don’t usually perceive with our senses. They are believed to have a high degree of extrasensory perception (ESP), commonly known as the sixth sense. These individuals with great intuitive gifts and extrasensory abilities are referred to as psychics.

Those who can take a step further from what a psychic can do are called mediums. A medium is a psychic, but a psychic is not necessarily a medium. 

There is a distinct difference between these two. If you decide to get a reading, then you must know which one you need. This article will provide you clarity about the difference between a psychic and a medium. Read on and discover which type of help and guidance does a psychic and a medium can offer.  

What is a Psychic?

Psychics are those who have the ability to provide information about your past, present, and future through intuition and extrasensory perception. They can answer your questions about your life in general—about family, love and relationships, career, financial opportunities, and even health. 

With their psychic abilities, they are able to tune into your energy vibrations during reading. Some of them have spirit guides that give them information about you. This is how they are able to perceive truths about you. Being able to sense your energy gives them insights about your pains, your desires, or even your current motivations that allow them to see what your future might be. 

What you need to remember is that psychics don’t predict your future. They are only able to have a glimpse in your future direction through the energy they perceive from you. Your feelings, emotions, and thoughts are forms of energy. With their talents, psychics are able to read and interpret the energy vibrations that surround your being. 

Types of Abilities that Psychics May Possess

Psychic abilities correspond with our five senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting. A Psychic Medium Rebecca Rosen refers to these abilities as clair senses, but they are known in layman terms as intuition. We all have a certain level of intuitive gifts. Psychics, however, are more tune in to their intuition. 

Depending on which senses, or clairs, are stronger, psychics tap into these gifts to gather information about a person. Below are the common clair senses that psychics may use in making interpretations and judgments during the reading. 

Clairvoyance: Clear Seeing

It is the ability to see visions of the past, present, and future. Clairvoyants receive the visions in their Mind’s Eye or Third Eye as mental flashes of mental images of people, objects, locations, symbols, and colors. They are also able to see auras or colored lights around people. 

Through seeing visions and reading auras, clairvoyant psychics can understand what people feel, what they’ve been through, and what they most likely do in the future. 

Clairaudience: Clear Hearing

It is the ability to hear words, sounds, or music in the mind. Psychics who have strong clairaudience ability can hear messages from the spirit realm. They may also hear voices calling their name. With this ability, psychics are able to hear what their spirit guides are telling them. 

Clairsentience: Clear Feeling

Clairsentience is commonly known as a gut feeling or a hunch. It is the ability to feel things around them, like thought energies and emotional vibrations. Because they are able to sense and feel people’s emotions, psychics with a strong clairsentient ability are most likely empaths or energy healers.

Clairalience: Clear Smelling

Spirits may send scents or odors associated with them when they were still alive. These scents could be a message or a warning. Psychics with dominant clairalience gifts are able to smell the fragrance or odors that the spirits have transmitted to them. 

Clairgustance: Clear Tasting 

It is the ability to taste something that doesn’t even there. Spirits may also send a message to the psychics through the taste of their favorite food or beverage when they were still alive. Psychics that are more tuned into their clairgustance gift may able to discern a character or behavior in the form of flavor transmitted to them by the spirits.

Seeking Help and Guidance from a Psychic

With their intuitive abilities, psychics can provide you guidance in the areas of your life where you need clarity. Are you feeling confused in life right now? Do you want to find out what circumstances led you to where you are now? Do you want to know what opportunities that may lie ahead in your life path?

Then what you need is a psychic reading. Psychics may be able to answer your questions about your life in general. You can ask questions about your home and family, love life and relationships, career and financial opportunities, or health. These are the areas in your life where your energy vibration is most attached to. 

When you’re looking for a reading from psychics, you just need to understand that your readers are not magicians and ask the right questions. You can’t expect them to know everything about your past, present, and future. But it would help them have a glimpse of what your future direction might be if you ask specific open-ended questions. 

A psychic reading may not be able to map out your entire life, but the insights you gain from your psychic reader may help you change the course of your life. Psychics may give you advice concerning your issues and curiosity, may it be about your current relationship, your career path, or future travels. 

Most of all, be open to the unexpected things that your readers might tell you. Some psychics deliver messages according to what they gather from their spirit guides. There might be things that you don’t want to hear and agree on, but don’t let these things discourage you or disappoint you. Think of it as honest advice that can benefit you in the long run. 

I actually wrote a guide about the Lightworker , something you might be interested in.

What is a Medium?

Mediums are psychics who are deeply connected to the spirit realm. With their psychic gifts, they are able to communicate with the spirits in the afterlife. If you miss your loved ones who have already passed away and you want to make contact with them, then what you need is a reading with a medium. 

Mediums can receive a message from the dead and relay it to the living. Because some deaths are sudden, unexpected, or brutal, seeking a reading from a medium may help provide closure and healing. Mediums can also answer your questions regarding someone’s death through speaking with the spirit. This may be helpful in murder cases, or missing person cases where the person missing is thought to be dead. 

Mediums don’t read about your past, present, and future. They don’t provide answers to your life questions, but they can assist you in your grieving process. They have fine-tuned their psychic abilities, or their clair senses, to match their vibrations to the spirit world. In this way, they become a communicator between two worlds.

Types of Mediumship

Some may have a natural gift of connecting with spirits. However, true mediums have to go through intensive training for years to master their abilities. These psychic gifts they possess can be honed and developed in various ways. 

Below are the most common types of mediumship that you may want to know. 

Mental Mediumship or Psychic Mediumship

This is the type of mediumship that uses telepathy and extrasensory perception to communicate with the spirits. Mediums of this type tune into their clair senses to see, hear, feel, and know the messages transmitted by the spirits. 

Messages are received through mental impressions, speaking, or writing. 

Physical Mediumship

This is the type of mediumship wherein the medium and the spirit work together to create a physical phenomenon. This can be anything from loud noises, levitation, producing flashes of light in their hands, making things around them move on their own, to materialize objects. They also use physical objects to get their message across to the one who needs their help.

This is done so the people who seek guidance actually see its physical manifestation. A medium that uses this method delivers messages to its clients through the means of making them see and experience it by themselves.

Trance Mediumship

Although this type of mediumship is the most commonly depicted in movies and TV shows, trance membership is actually the rarest of the lot. It involves the medium and the spirit working together again to give guidance to the client. The spirit enters the medium’s body and uses it to convey its message. Then, through its body and voice, the spirit speaks to the attendants in the room.

In some cases, the medium is fully conscious of what’s happening. They may also remember what the spirit had said to everyone around them and what it wanted.

While in other instances, the medium does not. They have a vague recollection of what happened and may not even remember all of it. Thus, in this case, they employ an assistant to help them. The assistant records what they said during the trance while the client and other attendants hear it directly from the medium’s mouth. However, the assistant doesn’t usually include the answers or reactions of other people in the room beside the medium.

Which One Do I Need: A Psychic or a Medium?

Many people are faced with this question when they seek guidance. Both of these two can help you resolve a spiritual issue that needs to be addressed. It can be a bit difficult to know which one a person should look for. And the answer is: it depends on their intentions.

If you are looking for guidance in your life, then a psychic reading is what you need. Psychics use their clair abilities to sense a person’s energy to read their past, present, and future. They generally only use their own abilities to do that.

If what you need is a direction or guidance on what to do for your future, you can go to a psychic. They can use their clair abilities to give you counseling on your future. They will be able to help you using their intuition and psychic gift.

Now, if what you need is something more specific than that, say, for example, talking to your deceased loved ones, go with a medium. It’s like going to a specialist for a particular kind of problem you need to address. Mediums can connect you to the spirit of the departed. They can act as a bridge between this world and the one beyond.

It has been commonly thought mediums can help restless souls to move forward. These are the souls of those who died mysteriously, murdered, or still have unfinished business in the world of the living. While this may be true, the best kind of help a medium can give is not to the dead but to those who are still alive.

Many people can’t go on with their lives if they experienced a sudden or traumatic loss. Mediums can help them overcome that by having them speak to the souls of their loved ones. The spirit will use the medium to tell them everything they wanted to say to their family. Or, the family can say their final words to the soul, and after that, everyone can start the healing process.

It’s not only the deceased mediums can talk to. They can also converse with higher beings, such as angels. If you need Divine guidance, looking for a medium can help you with that. They will connect you to the spirit world where you can ask for guidance.

Whichever one you need, it’s best to know first what kind of counseling you seek. Psychics and mediums can help you differently: psychics will use their abilities and intuition to read your life. Mediums will serve as a bridge between you and the spirit world. These two can both help you tremendously. All you must do is to know in yourself what kind of help or guidance you will want.

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Karen Hyman

Karen is a Psychic Medium, a Professional Astrologer, a Spiritual Advisor, and a Life Coach who has been in this career for 19+ years. She specializes in numerology, tarot and oracle cards, twin flames, love & relationships, zodiac, horoscope, dreams interpretation, and astrology. She aims to provide comfort and assurance using her abilities to offer answers to those who seek professional guidance. Read More About Karen Here.