Wellness

A Medium Channels a Loved One—and Explains Our Purpose Here and How We All Can Connect

Written by: the Editors of goop

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Updated on: September 21, 2017

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Reviewed by: Laura Lynne Jackson

A reading with a truly gifted medium (see our guide, here) can change your life—and specifically the trajectory of grief. While it will never obviate the pain of losing a loved one, or take away the sadness of not having their physical presence around, a medium, by bringing through highly evidential and specific information that nobody else could possibly know, can re-establish a connection, and offer a certain level of evidence that the soul survives death. This suggests that not only can we continue to communicate with loved ones on the other side, but that we will be met, on the other side of death, with people who can help us transition.

Belief in an afterlife comes much easier to some people than others, and is really the question that is the thesis of this week’s entire newsletter: does the brain create consciousness, or are we souls having a physical existence? Laura Lynne Jackson, the author of the NYT bestseller The Light Between Us, and one of the more incredible working mediums of the day, is at the center of many of the stories in this week’s issue. For example, she is one of the two mediums encountered by Leslie Kean in her book, Surviving Death (read our Q&A with Kean about everything she learned during her investigation, here ; and she read for Dr. Eben Alexander and gave him information about his NDE that furthered his understanding of the experience (read our Q&A about consciousness and the afterlife with Alexander, here. In short, we had to meet her and experience her gifts first-hand.

We met with Jackson this summer, and as part of our visit, had her do a fully blind reading on tape of our CFO, Erica. Jackson did not know who she would be reading until they sat down in front of the camera and we started rolling. We edited the 30-minute encounter down to a shorter 3-minute video below, but also added the full session to our site, here, as it’s interesting to see an unmediated cut of their time together. (Much of the information that didn’t fully land at the time ultimately came true in the following weeks.)

A Q&A with Laura Lynne Jackson

Q

When you read and channel the other side, what do you experience?

A

Reading is a very different mode than “normal mode,” when I’m just like everyone else. When I do a reading, it’s almost like I lift my energy up and click it into place on a higher plane—it sounds odd, but it’s like when you get an elephant boost when you’re little and can see above the crowd.

And then a screen appears in my mind, like a wide-screen TV, or ironically, like an old-school teacher’s blackboard. My screen is divided into a left-hand side and a right-hand side. I get my psychic information on the left-hand side. The first time I read someone I’ll see a core aura, which is a blueprint of that person’s soul in this lifetime. I’ll see a globe or sphere with certain colors, which is a whole language to me. It’s my way of understanding the gifts this soul came with, and maybe some soul challenges he or she is confronting, and how they’re doing with them. I’ll see timelines, which look like a a historical timeline. The lines down might not be an event, they might be a moment of decision, or a shift in what I call a soul cycle. Most of us have these different patterns of lessons that we’re learning here, so I might see when a soul cycle began for a certain lesson and when it ends. A lot of time the other side will give me information for the future, too.

When I read psychically, I connect with the sitter’s spirit guides. We all have spirit guides, though throughout time and history they’ve been called guardian angels. They are assigned teachers to help us on our path here. They will appear as points of light, and they’ll bring the psychic information forward—I might get a lot of information from the person I’m reading’s past, present, and future. And we all bring cords or connections to the people who are connected to us in this life—so if you’re married, your aura is connected to your spouse’s aura, and so I can read their energy off of you.

“When I do a reading, it’s almost like I lift my energy up and click it into place on a higher plane.”

When I read mediumistically, I see information on my right-hand screen. A point of light will appear, and push in. I’ve organized that side very clearly so that I can understand who is coming in. Anyone connected to the sitter’s mother comes in on the upper-right hand corner of my screen. Anyone connected to the sitter’s father comes in on the lower right-hand side. The middle of the screen is reserved for peers and people who are your same age bracket—friends, friends of friends, extended family.

That’s an easy way for me to get a quick understanding of who I’m connecting with. Then I ask for specific information. I love when they give me names—they don’t always do that, though sometimes I’ll either hear a name crystal clear, or parts of it, or they’ll start to spell it for me.

Q

How do you understand what they’re saying?

A

When I read, I always use the psychic toolbox we all have, the four “clairs.” The other side will use that as a language for me. I believe we all have intuitive and psychic abilities, the volume just isn’t turned up for most people.

There’s clairvoyance, which is clear seeing, and everybody has that, even people who don’t realize they’re psychic. Like when you’re asleep at night, your clairvoyance might open up. A lot of people will have visitations from people who have crossed, or they’ll have pre-cognitive dreams, or very symbolic dreams that will give them information about their path. For me, I might see them in color, or flashes of images about their life.

Then there’s clairaudience, which is clear hearing, and that’s when you hear a thought but it’s not yours. It’s not as scary as it sounds—it might be a name, or a phrase, or a word.

Most us have claircognizance and just don’t really honor it. Claircognizance is just clear-knowing, when you know something with every ounce of your being even when there’s no logical way you could or should.

Last is clairsentience, which most of us have and aren’t using. It’s that feeling in your solar plexus area, when you’re feeling information, or you get gut pulls. A lot of times when you travel, you get filled up with the energy and experience—that’s also clairsentience.

Basically when I’m reading, I’m using all four. It’s a very multi-sensory experience for me—I will be feeling things, knowing things, hearing things, seeing things. It’s very intense, and very interesting. I’ll also lose all track of time. I go into this other place. It’s very beautiful, too, because I lose my sense of “me”—I still know I’m Laura, and I still know I’m on earth, but I get to transcend who I am, and tap into this universal love. There’s never been a reading I’ve done where there have been any judgments. I feel so connected to that person after I read, and I feel so much unconditional love for them. In day-to-day life, when you’re out on the subway or at the grocery store, it’s easy to get annoyed by people, but when I read, it’s so liberating, because it’s just love—it’s so great.

Q

Can you read for yourself, or are you too emotionally invested to hear clearly? Can you read for your close friends when you know so much about them?

A

Reading is hard work because you’re translating images constantly. There’s a nuance to it—it’s almost like Pictionary or psychic charades. What can crowd it up and muddy the waters is your feelings about things. My close friends are at a disadvantage when I read for them because I’ll always want to write a happy ending for them. I want to create, or twist, or turn it in a certain way so that it’s positive. It’s a struggle to stay clear when it comes to people I really care about and really love. But I am able to do it.

You know when you meet someone and you feel an instant connection and you know that someone is part of your soul tribe? Then you might meet other people and it’s not that you’re judging them, but there’s almost an allergic reaction between your energies. They’re just not your cup of tea. There are some people who are so easy to read, and so easy to connect with. We are automatically connected to people we’ve known before—where there is a noticeable energetic match. So in that sense, it facilitates an easy connection or easy read. I just have to be careful to stay clear. My psychic friends and I have learned how to pull back and not write happy endings for ourselves.

There are times I get very clear information for myself. The way that I trust it, is that I don’t feel any emotions attached to it. If I get information and I’m excited about it, and think it’s great news, then I don’t trust it. If I get information and it feels full of doom, then I don’t trust it. But when I get information and it’s completely neutral, I know it’s legitimate.

“We’re not fully conscious of it, but we do deliver information for each other. You might have certain friends who always steer you in a reliably great direction or give really good advice. Pay attention to them!”

There are times when I get information for myself. For the most part I go out with my psychic friends, for what we lovingly call a Witches Brew—we’ll tune in for each other. We also do a lot of charity work together for Forever Family Foundation or Ronald McDonald House. Our spirit guides work together so often, that they all know each other. There’s definitely a beautiful advantage to having friends who are psychic mediums, though we are not exempt from being in the dark, a lot of the time. We are having our own authentic life experiences, and we have our own soul tests and challenges. Yes, we do this out in the world, but we are living our own lives. Do we cheat a little? Maybe. We have the advantage of being able to call each other. It’s so helpful and really wonderful.

I don’t think that my psychic medium friends and I are alone. I think we all do this for each other. Think about your own circle of friends—you’ll call and discuss things that are going on, and they might make a suggestion about a new way to see things. They might not even realize where it’s come from, but it might be coming from the other side. We’re not fully conscious of it, but we do deliver information for each other. You might have certain friends who always steer you in a reliably great direction or give really good advice. Pay attention to them!

Q

How do you distinguish between common sense and intuitive knowing—how can one tell if they have secret abilities?

A

Once you start honoring and recognizing it, life turns kind of magical. I do these one-day workshops: I jumpstart people’s abilities and get them to recognize what they’re actually doing—they don’t have names for it, and they don’t necessarily recognize or honor it in the proper ways. But once they become mindful and open their mind and heart to it, it’s like the doors open wide and you can start using it more and more.

Is there some analytical thinking mixed in? Absolutely. But you are still reading energy.

Q

What are some basic tips and tools for opening the mind and intuition?

A

I think the most important thing is to declare it to the other side, to say, “I am all in, I am open, and I am willing to start receiving more—to open my energy, to hear my spirit guides, and to get signs and messages from my loved ones on the other side. I open my arms and heart to it. Let me start feeling and seeing this life around me every day.” Declaring it is really important.

I always say that it doesn’t matter which psychic ability you start to work on—once you open one, they all open. It will happen no matter which one you’re working on. If there’s one you’re better at, do that.

There are other things that help as well. We all have a mind-body connection, so I think some things are simple, like getting enough sleep. Meditation can shift your energy in profound ways. When we pray we direct our energy to the other side, but when we meditate we listen back. When scientists have done EEG’s of my brain when I’m reading, they say that it looks like I’m unconscious, like in a deep, deep meditative state. They told me I went off the chart, they couldn’t measure my brain waves anymore.

“I always say that it doesn’t matter which psychic ability you start to work on—once you open one, they all open.”

For people who don’t do this daily, when they go to sleep or they meditate, their brains go offline in a similar way. I have a theory that a lot of children are very psychic and then it stops. When we’re little kids, we use all parts of our brains. All of us come here hard-wired, not only to the other side, to this universal love energy, which I call god and the universe, but also to each other—we’re linked to each other’s energy fields and the other side.

I think between the ages of one and five we really swim around in that. That’s why so many young children will have past-life recall, they’ll know things, they’ll recognize relatives in photos they’ve never met before—”Oh, I know this man, I’ve seen him in my dreams,” or, “I’ve seen him at the foot of my bed.” That is normal to them. But at around age five to seven, all of this stops.

Here’s what I find interesting: When I’ve had EEG’s of my brain when I’m trying to block psychic stuff and just go about having a normal day, the front of my brain, the frontal lobe, is lit up. That’s where all of us spend most of our living hours—it’s in charge of language, math, analytical thinking, etc. All the stuff we learn once we start kindergarten and get mentally organized. Once we start really functioning in our frontal lobe, I believe that we never go back and re-access the other parts of our brain.

As mentioned, when scientists study my brain when I’m reading, they find that I shut off my frontal lobe, and that’s why it looks like I’m not conscious. When I’m reading, it seems like I use the middle and back part of my brain, which most people don’t. We just have to learn how to turn our brains off and on. Our formal training has numbed us to our abilities.

Q

What other exercises can people do to tune back in?

A

In my workshops, I do various things to try to tune people back in, and encourage them to really focus on developing one of their “clairs.”

There is a fun exercise, where you can try to affect the outcome of dice using only the power of your thoughts. People need to understand that our thoughts are more powerful than you can imagine. Another important thing I’ve learned from the other side is that our free will trumps everything. It really can change the course of your path—we have the power to direct energy.

So I’ll give everyone one die and I’ll ask them to pick a number between 1 and 6, and I’ll have them roll 12 times. If you roll your number more than 3 times, that is statistically very significant. And a lot of people will find that they’ll roll their number 4, 5, or 6 times. That’s really powerful proof that what they’re projecting is affecting the future. And I’ll also find that some people will roll the die and get a different number that’s not theirs four, five, or six times only to find that it’s their neighbor’s number. Those people need to understand that they’re receivers, and they need to learn how to honor their energy and block the energy of other people.

We also practice remote viewing. Once you do that, and you’re “looking” without your physical eyes, that’s clairvoyance to such a significant degree that it can blow it wide open. I love doing it because everyone grumbles that they can’t do it, and this is ridiculous, and impossible, how can they draw a picture that I’ve hidden that they’ve never seen? But then they do it!

“They’ll get totally freaked out, because it’s one thing to come to a workshop and look at me, and think, ‘Okay, she does this, let me investigate this, could it be real?’ But when you have your own experience, it becomes undeniable.”

I also love doing psychometry, as every object holds energy. We’re all energy, and things hold energy, too. I ask people to bring an object that belonged to somebody, living or dead, and we pair them up, and they swap items, and read off the objects. Fascinating things will happen—quite often people will bring things from someone they’ve lost, and the person who is reading it will go straight from psychic to mediumistic and they’ll start bringing messages through from the other side. And they’ll get totally freaked out, because it’s one thing to come to a workshop and look at me, and think, “Okay, she does this, let me investigate this, could it be real?” But when you have your own experience, it becomes undeniable. I’ll also hear stories after the fact, how incredible things begin to happen—synchronicities and signs. Everything opens up.

A big responsibility comes with doing this work. I had to work and practice a lot to refine my abilities—I couldn’t get it to go away, so I felt like I needed to fully develop it, so that I was certain I was interpreting the information correctly. I would go to the grocery store and I’d be in line in front of someone. I would read their energy. I would never do that now—it’s way too invasive. Reading someone’s energy without permission is like going through their underwear drawer! But back then, when I wasn’t sure of my abilities, I would do it. I would ask myself: Are they married? Do they have kids? Am I getting any names? I would then strike up a conversation with them and test myself to see if I was right. (If you have friends who are also interested, do a little get together and see what you’re picking up and if any messages are coming through.)

I’m also going to tell you a secret formula that all mediums know about, that really gets information flowing. We know, because we have to be careful about it, because you literally can’t shut the information off. It’s the two-drink rule. Two alcoholic drinks within a 90-minute period, and the information begins to flow very intensely. It just doesn’t stop. I have to be careful, otherwise I’m reading the waitress, I’m reading the bartender, I’m freaking people out!

Q

How should one read and interpret signs?

A

Developing a relationship with your spirit guides can really help you develop all of your intuitive abilities—connect with them constantly and ask them for signs.

If you’re not specific, they’ll use the default signs. The default signs are typically:

  1. Coins, as anything metallic is really easy for them to manipulate—like pennies, dimes, nickels. My dad, who crossed in October, loves to send me dimes. They’ll come at amazing times, often when I’m having a really difficult day. For example, I was in Japan, doing this TV show, which was an incredible experience though very stressful because of the language barrier. It went really well, and I got in a cab to go home from the taping—there was an American dime on the floor of the Japanese cab.

  2. They will also send birds, butterflies, bees, deer, or even bats (though they typically don’t send bats, as they’re too scary), because these creatures all use electromagnetism to navigate and so they are easy to redirect.

  3. Electrical signals: lights, appliances, empty texts, phone calls from unknown numbers where nobody is on the line, etc.

  4. Songs on the radio, playing in stores, etc. They send messages through meaningful songs/lyrics quite often, and music shifts energy and is energy, so that is a bonus.

  5. License plates: Look for phrases or number sequences that are important. Keep your eyes peeled!

  6. Numbers in general, like on receipts, etc. 11, 444, etc. are all little hugs and kisses from the other side.

So that you know that it is intentional, ask for something specific, and ask your spirit guides to send you something different than your loved ones. For example, I ask my spirit guides to send me oranges. The first time I did a big event was for William Morris Endeavor, where I’m represented. They brought me to their retreat to give a talk about the other side in front of six hundred and fifty agents. Needless to say, it was a very intense crowd. I got off the stage, and I asked my spirit guides for an orange if I had honored their message. There was another speaker, and then we broke for lunch. We walked into the restaurant and what’s on display? Two thousand oranges. That’s how supported all of us are. There is a team of light on the other side between your spirit guides, your loved ones, and this god energy—they love you and want to get you on your highest path. It makes you realize you’re very loved.

Q

What do you think our purpose here on earth is?

A

To find and honor the unique gifts—talents, abilities—we each came here with and share them with others. To honor our own light and truths, and in doing that, help others find and honor their gifts and truths, and embrace their highest paths, too. When we do that, we become light workers who are on our highest paths.

Our soul purpose is to love and be loved. It’s as simple as that: finding any opportunity to give our love to others and to be open to receiving the love of others. That is what we are here to learn and embrace: love. Love for all things and all people. The path to that is kindness, tolerance, non-judgement. To focus on energy and the interior world, not the materialistic world. Always choose people’s feelings, generosity, and kindness over things; it is the recipe for success. Ultimately, gratitude, kindness, compassion, and love are the most powerful tools we can use to navigate our soul experience here.

True success is not having power over others, but helping build others up. We belong to each other—and ultimately we all rise together. No one is separate from anyone else’s experiences—that is an illusion. We are all part of each other. Different leaves on different branches of the same tree.

We are also here to experience beauty, so be open to art in all forms and learn to recognize and see and experience all things.

Q

Things in the world seem to be shifting—do you believe consciousness is about to crack open?

A

Yes: We are collectively like a plant pushing up from the ground! Even though it seems like a time of turmoil in the world, we are all growing together in the same direction. We are collectively taking a hard look at our beliefs and connections with one another, and we are being challenged to let go of fear, which comes in the form of hate and judgement, and evolve into a more loving consciousness. So many things are at work making this happen, it is actually a really exciting time.

The other side has told me to pay attention to what’s being channeled out of Hollywood: Movies and shows are catalysts for helping us embrace and experience our spiritual energy. In addition, we are entering a much more spiritual time, where energy and what is unseen is becoming more and more recognized. Our thoughts matter more than we know.

Also, science is going to help show us how energy is real and how our energy affects one another. The other side has always shown me that quantum physics will help solve the puzzle. Ultimately, we are consciousness—and when we leave our physical bodies, our consciousness is still very much “alive” and intact…and then, what separates you from someone else’s experiences? Not a physical body! Once we cross, we can instantaneously connect with others’ experiences and consciousness, making it all make sense how truly what we do to others we are really doing to ourselves. We are all in this together.

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Laura Lynne Jackson is arguably one of the greatest living mediums, certified by both the Forever Family Foundation and the Windbridge Institute. She is the author of The Light Between Us, and you can catch her at events, workshops, and group readings through FFF.