If you have been keeping up with season 11 of Married At First Sight Australia then you might have found yourself thinking about psychic mediums.
One of the brides, Madeleine, is a self-professed psychic medium—in other words, someone who can communicate with the dead.
Madeleine is certainly the type of person we expect those in touch with their spiritual side to be like (a little kooky and emotionally unpredictable with a tendency to communicate with the spirits at the dinner table) but she’s also a professional actress who’s done stints on Home and Away, Upper Middle Bogan and Wentworth.
While this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have psychic medium abilities, we’re thinking its safe to presume she might have turned them up a notch for the sake of the show.
But what is a psychic medium—the non-MAFS kind—really like? And what actually happens during a psychic medium reading? I had a reading with psychic medium, Jessica Lynne, to find out.
What Happens During A Psychic Medium Reading?
I have always been interested in the idea of psychics and mediums but until my reading with Jess, I’d never gotten around to visiting one myself. For this reason, I didn’t have any idea of what to expect.
While I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as a believer, I’m also not a complete sceptic either—I went in with a pretty open mind.
My reading took place over Zoom, which was probably the part of the reading I was most sceptical about—how can someone connect with your energy through a screen?
However, this seemed to be the main way Jess conducted her readings, and a quick stalk of her Instagram profile showed nothing but good reviews.
When Jess came onto the call, I was quietly relieved that she didn’t appear to be kooky or overly woo-woo.
In fact, the only thing that set her apart from any ordinary Zoom call was the neon pink ‘I Talk To Dead People’ sign behind her.
After saying our initial hellos, Jess told me she was going to take a couple of minutes to connect to me and my energy. To do so, she closed her eyes and I waited.
A few moments later, she opened her eyes and told me that a man had come forward.
As all of my female relations are still alive, this was reassuring.
“He keeps referencing that he is someone who is very practical, sort of no fuss personality,” Jess said before smiling. “He’s quite a funny man. He’s a little cheeky in the way he comes through. He keeps smiling and I think he would have been described as a bit of a character.”
“In saying that,” Jess continued, “I don’t think he was necessarily the life of the party but someone that sits back and observes and adds his two cents and has his little one liners.”
At this stage, I was trying to figure out who she might be referencing. Three of my grandfathers have passed (two biological and one non-biological) and this information could have related to at least two of them.
Jess also began talking about this man’s deterioration towards the end of his life, and eventual entrance to a “nursing home, hospital or palliative care.”
“He keeps saying, even though that was the thing that was my worst nightmare to have to do, it was the right decision at the time because it was getting concerning.”
This didn’t really enlighten me, as it could be applied to all of my grandfathers, and quite honestly, most elderly people.
However, from there, things did start getting a little more specific.
“He likes to give everything a crack, like if things were broken then he would try to fix them himself, he keeps showing me he likes to be outside in the shed or in the garden doing his thing.”
“He worked hard and was a provider. I think he came from a simple upbringing.”
At this stage, it did start sounding like my grandfather on my dad’s side but it wasn’t until Jess mentioned he was showing her a school that my interest was piqued—my grandfather, or Dida, as we called him, was a teacher and headmaster.
From there, Jess told me a little more about my own life and relationship, all through what the spirit was communicating to her about it.
Jess got a lot of things right, including the stage I was at in my life in terms of work and relationship, and what my fiancé and I value in our life. She brought up that my cousin and I (funnily enough, also on my dad’s side) were living far away from each other and she nailed many specifics about my dad and my brother’s lives as well.
Jess also mentioned that the spirit kept asking “when are you going back?”, which she thought might have been about somewhere I’d travelled but I quietly wondered whether it might be to do with when I was going back to my family in Perth.
There were also plenty of things Jess said about the future that didn’t make sense to me, like the fact she would get a small fluffy dog when I’m more of a border collie type of person, and that my very un-sporty fiancé would have career moment to do with sport.
However, I’ve heard enough stories from people who have been to psychics to know that might not make sense at the time, end up making a lot of sense in the future.
At the end of the call, Jess told me was that the spirit (who we’re still imagining to be my Dida) leaves me coins when he wants to connect with me.
Later that day, when I relayed the information to my mum on the phone, she joked about being offended that the spirit of her father-in-law didn’t mention anything about her in the reading.
When she hung up the phone, she found three gold coins next to her bed.
Of course, there’s no way to find out whether she accidently dropped the coins out of her own wallet (as my very sceptical dad told her) or it really was a message from the other side.
Either way, its nice to believe it was the latter.
How Do You Make The Most Of Your Psychic Medium Reading?
I didn’t exactly go into my reading with the best preparation—when Jess asked me whether I had anything to ask the spirit, I couldn’t thing of anything I should be asking.
I probably should have asked about specific family members and areas of my life I wanted to know more about.
For this reason, I’d recommend writing a list of questions about things that you have been wondering about—whether that’s a passed loved one or something in your life that you’re unsure how to navigate.
However, the most important thing to do is to go in with an open mind.
You might not hear exactly what you’re wanting to hear but remember that something that doesn’t resonate at the time may arise in an unexpected way in the future.
