154: Psychic Abilities - Do You Have Them and How to Train Them

0:00Welcome to Back on the Brumstick, a modern witch's spoken word grimoire, where two witchy friends from way back are reconnecting to their pagan roots after a long period of manganity, where rewalking the path of the wise and trying out all the latest spells, rituals and magical theory in today's witchcraft and pagan practices. So grab your wand and your incense, your cauldron and your crystals, and join us as we get Back on the Brumstick! I, and welcome to Back on the Brumstick! I'm Layla, and on this episode we're discussing psychic abilities. What are they? Are they bullshit? Who has them? Do you need them? And how do you get, strengthen, and learn to control your own psychic abilities? And I am shell, and you know, I just got to giggle. You lost me and I lost my train of thought when you said is it bullshit? I don't think they are. But I'm super excited to have this conversation because I feel like there's that thought,

1:01do I have it? Don't I have it? Am I good enough? Am I not good enough? I can't read tarot because I'm not psychic. And I think it's a good time to kind of dive in. We've scratched the surface in the past, but I'm excited. That's true. We do have an episode, I believe it's episode number 21, that was inspired by a question we had gotten from our Instagram. And in that we do kind of touch a little bit on psychic abilities. We talk about the different types of psychic abilities. And it's a good episode. I'll make sure to link that in the show notes. Now before we get into our main topic, I do want to say a quick thank you, like a huge thank you, actually, to our listeners, to all of you wonderful, amazing witches because you have made my birthday absolutely phenomenally witchy and wonderful. My birthday was on February 1st and throughout the month of February, I got so many cards and letters and notes and emails and even presents from all of you guys.

2:04I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me is someone who never really celebrated you know, hey, I'm a mom, we don't make a big deal for ourselves or our birthdays, we make a big deal for other people. So having people spend that much time and effort on me, that was amazing. Thank you guys so much. Well, I'm glad you're thankful for that because it was very stressful and painful for me. It was difficult some days, haul and all those boxes back from the PO box. Like there'd be days I could hardly walk up the street because my arms were so full. And I'm thinking if I fall on ice, all of Layla's birthday presents are going flying. It was stressful for me. So I'm glad you enjoyed it. I did and it was very nice. Our listeners are so generous. Most of the time they would send gifts not just for me, but for you as well. I love you guys and I just got to say that, you know, I felt like like the younger kid who was like, oh, it's through birthday and not mine. And you know, a bunch of you guys sent me stuff too for Layla's birthday and I love you for it.

3:09Thank you. But today, today I went to the PO box and like I can't even. So as we've told the listeners, you know, usually I'll go down to the PO box and I'll open things up and I'll take pictures or whatever text you and let you know what's there today. I did something today that I think scared you. I called you and I called you and I'm like, you need to call me. If you call me, that usually means something big, that usually means something surprising or shocking. Especially during my work day. So I have to say to Chrissy in California, you have blown it out of the park overboard. I actually literally had tears in my eyes when I opened this box. I squealed so loud everybody at work knew I literally went and showed everybody at work. Chrissy sent me a coronation plate from Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on June 2nd in 1953.

4:11I literally almost fell out of the chair like I couldn't even. I couldn't handle myself. I still like I get all whatever, just talking about it. But Chrissy, I cannot tell you what that means to me. I just can't and to your partner for relinquishing it to me, I don't even have words. I don't even have words. I love you. I love your partner and thank you from the depths of my heart and soul. Thank you guys. The sweetest and just seeing how excited Shell was was absolutely amazing. So thank you so much. What a very, very thoughtful gift. Now this is the first week of March when we're recording this. So I have to say that gift to Shell was definitely a beautiful way to start out the month. What's that old saying that they have if March comes in with coronation gifts and goes out with lots of incense? I don't know. Something like that. How's it? I was literally thinking roses. I like roses too. I like roses.

5:11incense works too. I think it's more in like a lion out like a lamb or if it comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion. You've got punks of tawny fill in February and then beginning of March you go straight to lions and lambs. I'm at it him right now. Don't even mention him. Why are you mad at punks of tawny? Because can this guy ever predict spring to come early? First of all, and second of all, could he ever be right? No. It's going to be late and I said it was going to be early and I think I was right this year. Laila is the new punks of tawny fill in human form. Yeah. Just call me a groundhog. If Laila pops her head out on her birthday, spring is coming early. There you go. This introvert leaves her house in early February that probably means it is spring. But over the course of my life, my grandmother used to say that. My mother used to say that. Anson uncles used to say that. Yeah. Is that a northeast thing or is that an all across the country thing? That I don't know. People let us know if you do not live in the northeast. Let me know if you have heard about March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb or

6:15the reverse. We did have a big storm right at the beginning of March. The lion is living in sale in my swear. But it's funny because these are things that our grandmother said, you know, great grandparents and uncles. Old folk wisdom, folk tales, folk wisdom. And I've been very much getting back into family folklore of mine. And it's just interesting. Some of the things that when you're growing up, you don't realize like, you know, March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb. You just think that that's just a common thing that everybody does. Everybody thinks that everybody knows that. But it's really a folktale and a part of the fabric of our folk magic. Like my mother's side of the family, you know, they'd always say, we're Pennsylvania Dutch. And, you know, I grew up with the hexines inside my house because apparently we're weird and didn't have them outside, must go with my throwing the cinnamon out the door thing. But you know, I grew up with this stuff.

7:16But what's funny is these are the same people who had a hard time coming to grips with the fact that I am a witch and into witchcraft. And some of these, I think, practices, maybe they didn't realize we're kind of witchy, you know, and thinking back and swinging back to what our topic is tonight, I can say the same exact thing about psychic abilities. I mean, I can't tell you how many times both my grandmother's would be like, drop a spoon when somebody's coming or maybe it was a knife or a fork. I don't know. You dropped a piece of silverware. Someone was coming and sure as shit, someone would come and they'd be like, see, I told you I knew what was going to happen. I knew they were coming. But if you told my grandma she was psychic, she'd get out the wooden spoon and beat your ass with it. You know what I'm saying? Oh, I 100% do. I also had a grandmother who was very Christian and would have beat my ass with a spoon if I had said she was a witch. But she was what you might call a spiritualist.

8:16She believed in speaking to the dead. She saw ghosts. She believed in ghosts. She used a weach aboard. I have her weach aboard. She would read people's fortunes with buttons. She would take this old sewing container like the one that came in the cookie tin. Yep. She'd take usually buttons but sometimes other items from the sewing tin too. And while she was having tea with a neighbor or whatever, she'd casually they'd be grabbing some buttons and she'd throw them on the tablecloth and she would read their future. That's literally charm casting just saying exactly exactly just with buttons which is weird. But you know, whatever she always knew when people were having babies or affairs, I'll tell you that. But there was a psychic ability and for a lot of that generation, they did these things without calling it witchcraft. These are things that are woven into the fabric of your life and you don't realize maybe that it's a knowing or a psychic ability like say staring at someone. How often have you ever stared at someone across the room to get them to turn around and look at you? I literally do it to my sweet love all the time when he's sleeping and I know he's kind

9:19of sleeping and I'll stare at him until he opens his eyes and it works. Exactly. Or have you ever been somewhere and felt someone looking at you until you turned around and looked at them and they're staring right at you? Exactly. Yes. How does that happen? In either of those cases, how did you know? I like to think with my sweet love that my gaze is penetrating into his soul and he can't help but know that I am looking at him. When someone's staring you, do you feel it anywhere? Can you like feel it? It depends if they're behind, like I've had times behind me where I feel like someone is like staring right into the back of my skull and you turn around and they're literally staring. If you turn around or like looking right in your eyes, which would have been the back of my skull. Which is perfect because those are ways of manipulating energy and sensing energy, extra sensory perception. You are using psychic ability when people do that. You're pushing your energy literally to like touch someone. You are touching your sweet love with your eyes, getting him to wake up.

10:20I feel when someone's staring at me, you know that spot like right between your shoulder blades right at the top of your spine at the base of your neck. That's the spot where I mostly feel the energy of someone staring at me when they're like directly trying to push energy at me and get my attention. What is happening when you sense the energy of someone staring at you? What are psychic abilities? We believe that psychic abilities are the ways that are higher self, our magical mind and the energies of the world and the universe speak to us, contact us, give us information beyond your five ordinary senses. They are forms of subtle perception that allow a person to notice patterns, emotions, symbols, and energetic shifts that most people usually overlook. In which craft we choose not to overlook that psychic ability is accepted as one of our senses and we see it more as paying attention to the energies that already exist in the world. Science shows us that humans with our five senses are only able to perceive a small fraction,

11:22a tiny little part of what exists in the world and our psychic senses are there to help fill in some of the gaps. They might not be as strong as the five main senses but they can be trained and made better and most of that training is learning to quiet your mind and really listen to what those other senses are trying to tell you. For example, how many of us have had a situation where you've had a feeling about a friend or a family member, maybe something small and you reached out to them, you called them or texted them and found out that they were having a really shitty day and needed someone to talk to right at that moment. I know you've had that show. I know there's times where I have randomly reached out and been like, hey, everything all right? You're doing good. But I know that there's been times over the, we won't talk about how many decades where I have literally had something going on in my mind. I'm like, Layla, please just reach out to me and all of a sudden your texting or calling like you heard me, kind of like that. I need you.

12:23Right. It's the call. Exactly. Exactly. But that's part of the psychic perception that we're going to talk about in this episode is that a really big part of learning to strengthen your psychic abilities is paying attention to those subtle messages. Correct. In which craft we talk a lot about being psychic or who's psychic or sensing these psychic energies. And the two things that we just talked about, you know, you reaching out like, oh my gosh, I really need you. Call me. And one of us hearing that and reaching out to the other and also the staring at someone and getting them to look at you, these are things that people do all the time. I bet you right now that there are listeners in their car at home nodding along because they just recently felt their friend and texted, hey, everything okay. And that friend said, no, I need you to call me. We need to talk right now. Right. You know, they had that happen. And those are psychic abilities. Everyone. Okay. That's the big thing.

13:23We're going to tell you right now, everybody's everyone. Yeah. You're all psychic. And in some way or another, everybody think of it is like an athlete. I mean, I grew up being an avid softball and volleyball player. And those were things I had to work at and those were things I had to practice. Now at the age that I am, I'm not sure I would want to jump right out and be swinging bats or spike in volleyball. You know, those are muscles I haven't used in a long time. And I think of psychic ability as a similar thing like a muscle. If you're not using it, it's just there. If you want the muscle to work, you got to use the muscle. And even if that's little bits of time, you know, just as if you were going to lift weights or learn a sport, you know, you got to start somewhere and start practicing and work your muscles up and get that. So it's not a painful process like maybe a sport or an exercise can be. So I look at it as working a muscle.

14:23And if you're not working the muscle, you might not feel that psychic ability. But if you work the muscle, it's there. When I used to read tarot cards professionally, a lot of times my clients, they'd say, oh, you must be so special with psychic abilities. That's amazing. I wish I was psychic. How do you learn to do that? And I would always tell them the same thing that everyone is psychic. And I would relate it to sports. I would relate it to baseball. Everyone can play baseball. Don't care who you are. Everyone can play baseball. Some people go out to play baseball. And the first time are really, really good at it. They can hit home runs. They can throw and catch and steal bases and do a great job seemingly without any practice. Some people have to work at it and get better. Some people have a hard time. Maybe they need a special ball. Maybe they have vision impairment and they need a ball with a sound. Or maybe they need the bases to be closer together or a special mitt. You might need accommodations, but everyone can play baseball.

15:25And everyone can practice. Like you said, you can work at it and you can practice to get better. No matter where you start out at, whether you are the pro baseball player or whether you're someone somewhere in the middle, which to be honest, most of us, that's what we're going to be, you can get better. You can work at it. But we can all play baseball. Nobody has psychic abilities. Same thing. It's just, are you working that muscle right now or not? Exactly. Exactly. And we've talked about the different types of psychic ability. Anytime you pull up an episode, they're going to talk about the clairs. You got, I can't even think of all of them, but they're literally don't even pay attention to the clairs. I'm going to be honest. The idea of it is that for every sense that you have in the real world, whatever sense it is, you have another sense just like it in the psychic realm. And just like some people are super tasters and can taste every single ingredient in a dish. There are some people that are going to be very, very good at one or another of these different psychic senses. You know, you might have an outsized tasting sense, but not really good at hearing.

16:25Or you might have a really good touching sense, but not be very good at seeing. Just like you have that in the mundane world, you will also have these different varying levels of ability in the psychic world as well. And I think what I'd really like to talk about mostly in this episode is, what does it feel like when you have these different types of things happen? And how can you work at it? How can you discern it from just stress or biases? And how can you make it better and grow? You know, it's funny because as you were saying that all I could think of is, well, at first you think you're dumb, then you think you're crazy, and then you realize you were right. Those are the stages of psychic ability. Yeah, that's pretty true. And one of the ones that I would put in there is regret, I think. Should I couldn't want to? Exactly. I should have said something or I should have written it down. And I'm not going to be out here advocating that every time you have a psychic thought or impression, I don't think you should just tell the person if it's about someone else.

17:27Because part of having these psychic abilities or any abilities as a witch is responsibility. People aren't always ready for a message. You might not always be right. I agree that ability equals responsibility. Yeah. And so most of the time when we talk about saying something, we're going to mean write it down in your journal, write down what you felt, write down what day it was, write down what you thought, how it came to you, all the different things around how it came to and how it felt when you had that idea. Write it down. Because you will regret if you don't say it. The biggest thing I had was regretting when I would get an impression from a client and not saying it. That would get me. That bug. I agree with you 100% unless it's between you and me and then you better tell me. Oh, I always do. Okay. You'll see that's even a little bit different because between you and me, one of the problems I have is bias. I know you. I know a lot about your life. I know so much about you in your life.

18:29So sometimes I'm afraid when I do a reading for you that I'm not reading your energy, I'm reading what I know about you. And usually what I'll say when this happens is, okay, shall I'm seeing a vacation coming up for you in the cards. But we just talked last week about the fact that you want to plan a vacation for the next month. So I don't know if what I'm seeing is you're actually going to take that vacation that you're planning or an echo of the conversation that we had. And you know, it's funny that you said that because I think one thing people do struggle with with psychic ability also is, is this just coming to me or am I just thinking it because I know the situation or I'm overthinking the situation or is this actually a real message. And I think in the beginning, you know, it goes right back to practice. It's hard to discern that. And God, I can't believe I'm saying this again. If you, if you jot these things down, I'm going to use that J word.

19:31If you jot these things down in a notebook, then you can kind of go back and see where you kind of play in in your own head or was that a real message? And that's really, we're writing some of these things down actually can help you. Very much so. And I was joking with my partner before this that you were going to have a terrible time because this whole episode is about writing it down. As much as I hate the word journaling, maybe I'm thinking of it in a bad way because the more we always mention it, the more I realize I write down more than I really would admit to. And another thing that I've noticed is over the years is that sometimes if you get a really strong message an hour later, I'll forget it. So that's another thing about writing down because, you know, similar to dreams, you know, I'm not going to remember a dream three hours after I wake up. There are people who do get psychic messages through dreaming. So I do see the value in writing these things down. If you think it right it down and you can discern later, whether it was a message or

20:34not, another important thing for writing it down goes back to learning what psychic messages feel like for you earlier. I was talking about when someone stares at me, I feel it in a specific spot and it's tingly. It's very tingly when I feel that type of energy. So that's something I have become familiar with. And the same thing is true for messages. Most of the time when messages come through, they're going to be different for everyone. You might get it in words. You might get it in impressions or visions. You might get sense or sounds or just thoughts or ideas, but they'll typically be accompanied by a specific voice maybe or a specific feeling that you'll get to know. I do think that people get so stuck on the clairs and which one am I? I think that people can have multiple clairs working because, you know, just like you said, you feel that you feel that tick in the back of your neck with someone

21:35staring at me. Yeah. Whereas I almost feel like I'm being told someone's staring at you, almost like a whisper, someone's staring at you, turn around, turn around, turn around. So I almost feel like I'm being told it where you almost like feel it on your skin, but in a different situation, I could walk into a room of toxicity. And every fiber of my skin is telling me to get out. And it's more like a feeling in my skin, leave, like it's almost like my body is saying, leave. So sometimes it's like a texture feeling. Sometimes it's that little voice. So I do think you can have a bunch of different clairs that are going to pop up in different situations. That's a really good point. How those psychic senses, the clairs feel and which ones are stronger in a given situation is very individual. You might feel it like a sudden knowing. It might come to you as words or sounds, maybe a sensation in the body,

22:37an image, a dream, a symbolic message. And that'll be different depending on which of your senses are stronger. And what type of energy is trying to come through? Correct. The other day I had a message for you. And I was doing editing and I was listening to your voice. And I distinctly had a voice in my head say, well, she's going to get very good news in the next 24 hours, which you actually texted me. And the reason I texted you is because the quality of that message felt different than like a normal, intrusive thought or just a random phrase that would pop up or even anxiety. Like if it was something I was worried about, you know, maybe an anxious message might come up. But when I get the messages that I know are psychic messages, they're accompanied by a specific quality of feeling. They almost feel softer quieter. And like you said, they're easier to forget than an anxious message. Like an anxiety message, man, that shit will run around in my head.

23:37Like it fucking lives there. And it'll keep me up at night. That's different. This is like a fleeting thing. Very often what helps me know that it's a psychic message and not my anxious brain, you know, come in and it has like a sound, a quality, a distinct voice to it. And so writing those down until you get used to what that feels like and sounds like writing it down all about it. Not just the message that you got in the date, but what did you smell? What did you feel? Did you feel a tingle? Did you hear the words? What specifically about that made you think you needed to write it down, write that down so that you can start to get an idea of what psychic messages feels like or sounds like follow the pattern. That'll help you follow the patterns. And I also think you need to let go of expectations. You know, I think a lot of people are like, I want to be the one to have the visions. And then you end up being the one that gets like the voice, the sound piece or the taste or the smell. But I wanted the visions, go with what comes to you in the beginning,

24:40because I, like I said, you know, going back to the muscle thing, I think that if you work these muscles, you can build yourself up to being able to potentially, it's not a guarantee, but tap into all of the clairs. I agree. And I think that if you're getting psychic impressions in a certain way, that's not to say that that's the only talent that you'll have. For example, one of the most common psychic things that happens to me, and it happens to a lot of my family, to the point where we almost think it's kind of normal that it happens so often is a psychic scent. And that's not typically a psychic sense that I would think that I had in abundance or would even consider a psychic sense. But let me explain my paternal grandfather used to smoke cherry tobacco in a pipe. And after he passed on randomly, a lot of us in the family, now he had nine kids and almost 50 something grandchildren. So we would randomly, yeah, we would randomly smell cherry tobacco.

25:44And it wasn't always in his home. So it wasn't like places where he had smoked, but we could be at a restaurant that he had never been at. And if we started talking about him, we would all smell the cherry tobacco. So whenever I smell that ghostly cherry tobacco, where there shouldn't be any tobacco, which is more often than you might think, that's how I know my grandfather has come to visit. That's not something I normally do. Like I wouldn't say that I'm whatever the smell Claire is because I know there is one. I would not say that that's typically one of my talents, but that's how he comes to us. That's how he shows up. We know his spirit, his energy is around when you smell cherry tobacco. So just because you have experiences in one of these doesn't necessarily mean that that's the only one that you have, right? Or that it's the only one that you could be good at. So how do you tell if you're psychic, the burning question? Well, you are. Everybody is. I think everybody is. And I think that things like tarot cards, all the divination tools that we all like to use are keys or helpers.

26:47Some people call them training wheels. And I used to hate that when some of my teachers would say, oh, you're, you're using tarot like training wheels lately. Tarot's a gateway drug man. Well, they were more like saying that I didn't need them that the symbology and the tarot cards are nice, but it's a crutch. You put the cards away and you can just read with psychic ability and psychic impression. And they were right, but I like tarot. I like that insight. I like that key, that gateway, that opening that a divination tool gives me. It kind of gives a different flavor to the different psychic impressions and the different ideas. And I kind of look at it as, is it fills in the gaps? You know, not everything that you're going to, you're going to get psychically is going to be, you know, a very clear cut start to finish thing. And sometimes the cards or, or charms or home sticks or runes can kind of fill in those gaps. I love it said that way. Yeah. And and it can give you a psychic brain, your magical brain,

27:50something else to latch on to that allows you to follow that path, a color or an image or a symbol on the cards or the home sticks or the runes or in your charm set. Well, it'll take you down a different path that you might not have thought of or that might have been closed off to your psychic ability. So I really think, okay, fine, they're a little bit training wheels, but they're very much a key. I think of them more as a key. I just look at it as an additional tool, not, not a hinder, a crotch or, or anything like that. And to bring it back to your question of how do you know if you're psychic, I think the better question is not am I psychic because I think everyone is, but more where do my talents lie? Where do I have the most natural talents and what can I improve on? And how can I improve on them? When people talk about training abilities, when, when you go to someone and you want to be trained, a lot of times they'll talk about finding stillness in yourself, finding that quiet.

28:51And I think that a lot of us do this instinctually, a lot of witches, when you pick up any type of divination tool, you might automatically go to that quiet place, you center yourself, you ground a little bit, you maybe go into alpha and quiet, meditative state. And in that place, you're very receptive to psychic messages and to any type of information from the outside. And so doing that and using your divination tool, if you don't think you're psychic, starting there can be a great way to tap into that because you're already familiar with it or you can become very familiar. You know me in tarot cards, I will use it for every method possible. And I think that that is a good way to kind of tap into some psychic ability. For me personally, and I understand tarot doesn't work for everybody. But I think that it's really about, again, practicing whatever method works for you. You got to put in the time to get the ability. You know, we're not just all going to wake up tomorrow's psychic because TikTok

29:54told us we were just if you were going to do any other thing that you have to practice and train and learn for. This is the same thing. You want to up your psychic ability, up your practice. And you can turn your daily tarot, Paul or rune, Paul into psychic practice, started in the morning and pull a card for the day and ask for messages about your day, ask for specifics and write down as much as you can that you get during that time, write it down. And then at the end of the day, pull another card and do what Jane Matthew said, pull a card for what happened that day. Get all the information, write it down and then look at what you wrote in the morning and compare it to what you wrote in the evening and see what that looks like and note how you feel when you write these things down. Now, a lot of people talk about where they get psychic messages from. If you've got clear audience or if you've got some type of clear feeling or clear sentience for me, especially when I really get into the flow of reading

30:58tarot cards or if I get into the flow of reading a person, I tend to close my eyes because I feel like there's so much going on. There's so many things coming into my brain that it almost feels like it's too much stimulation. So I close my eyes and it feels like things are kind of funneling into the back of my head or downloading into the back of my head. And that's usually how I know that it's almost a channeled message or channeled information or I've really kind of tapped into that psychic stream when I'm doing tarot reading. You know, I kind of have this, I don't want to say it's like an on the spot meditation, but you know, I got a little two minute thing, like a little breath working stuff before I get into that tarot zone. You know, it's almost like when you're making a phone call and the phone's ringing, you know, the phone's ringing and you're waiting for him to pick up. I'm getting myself ready to receive whatever message. And when you are getting into a space, you know, I, I see people that just kind of, okay, so I got my tarot cards.

32:01Let's shuffle them up. Let's lay them down. What's going on? You got to get into that head space. It's similar if you are doing ritual. You know, you kind of get yourself into the space to do ritual. You've got to get yourself into the space to receive those, those messages. Yeah, because you can't have your cluttered, anxious brain being active because it might drown out the quieter messages or, or make the quieter sense or sounds or feelings that you get hard to see. Right. Ground it out before, you know, ground or, or get yourself centered, you know, get yourself whatever works for you. Take a few moments to be prepared to receive whether it be smell, taste, hear, you know, visual, whatever the case may be, but you got to kind of get ready for that message until you are to a point where you don't need to get ready for that message. Quieting your mind, centering yourself, grounding is exactly what you need to do in order to be able to hear these messages.

33:03And another big part of that, the next big part of that is you need to also trust yourself. You need to tell yourself, I am ready and prepared to receive psychic messages. Yep. And you have to believe it. If you don't have that belief, if you don't have that feeling, you can literally build a wall, lock yourself off. Exactly. Anytime I'd have a tarot client that would come off to me and say, you know, I can't be read. You're not going to be read. That's because by saying that, you have built a psychic wall and made it true. So I would ask them to say, I give you permission to read me and they would, they'd repeat it. And immediately you could see that psychic wall drop because if you have that belief, if you have the belief, you have a wall, you have a wall. If you believe that you are open and receptive, you are open and receptive. Exactly. Practice saying that, practice saying, I am open and ready to receive the messages that the universe, that my guides, that my psychic self has for me.

34:06Then once you've done that, and like Shell said, you got to practice this. You have to do it all the time. We say, draw your tarot cards. Maybe you can make your daily tarot, Paul, your psychic time, your psychic practice time. You know, back in the day, one thing that used to kind of get me to that place, I have found more efficient ways through years of practice. But that that Laurie Cabot crystal cave meditation from the power of the witch book, that is a good way. I felt as a beginner to get into that space. Meditations, especially that crystal cave countdown are great way to get into an alpha state, a meditative alpha state. And that's where your brain is going to be quieter and more receptive and better able to hear some of those subtle psychic messages. And that's a good point on how to differentiate them too, because psychic messages aren't always loud, anxious messages very often are and psychic

35:07messages aren't always repetitive and anxious messages very often are. So getting into a nice meditative state where that anxious brain is calmed and quiet can let you hear some of those psychic messages a lot more clearly. Any repetitive thing that you can do will really help your brain drop down into that alpha, that early morning stares kind of feeling. Another good part of practice is to practice reading for people that you don't know. Low stakes, tell them that you're a beginner. Maybe you have a coworker that you don't know that well or a casual friend that finds out that that you read runes and says, Hey, you want to give me a reading? You can say, Sure, I'm a beginner, but I'll do the best I can. And then read them, be enthusiastic, say the things that come to you. And don't be afraid to be wrong. Obviously use caution and care. You need to be a good ethical, be ethical. It's a good way to put it. But be open and just let it flow. And I find that reading for people I don't know is actually easier than

36:08reading for people that I do. Because then if I don't know you, then I can just let the messages that I'm getting come and just say them. When I do know you, I have to say, did we just talk about that vacation? Or do I know that this significant other is a good idea? That's why I won't read for myself. It makes it really hard. There's a lot of biases you have to swim through. So sometimes it might seem the opposite, but reading for people you don't know can be easier than reading for people that you do know. So add that to your practice. Having said that, do not walk up to random people and tell them your psychic impressions. I'm carehouse strong. There is no that goes along with being ethical. None of us are that Theresa Caputo, the Long Island medium. There you go. None of us are that person. Don't do that. Write it down. If you get a really strong impression about a stranger on the subway, put it in your journal. Write it down. Write all the details down. And if you can verify it later independently without bothering that person, then do so. But please don't go around telling people stuff unless they ask you.

37:10Follow the same social boundaries with your psychic boundaries. If you wouldn't kiss them randomly, you shouldn't go up and tell them weird information about their job randomly. That's just creepy. And again, it gets back to ethics. If someone doesn't ask me, I don't usually tell them unless it's you. I mean, friends are different, which she friends, especially are different. You should probably tell you what you're talking about. Better tell me. Seriously. Another way I like to practice is by keeping track of things that I see on the news if I'm watching the news or doom scrolling in bed at night. If I get an impression about something, I'll put it in a notes tab or I'll write it down in a journal. If something's in the public eye, it's easier to follow up with it and find out what happened later. You maybe get an impression about a celebrity. That's something pretty easy to write down and try to look up later and see how you did. I don't recommend going on social media and declaring that you have all the answers to the latest celebrity kidnapping case. But do write it down and keep track of it for your own information.

38:13So you can learn to see how it feels for you, what you get right, what you don't get right, what these symbols and impressions mean. And you can start to differentiate, well, that was just a random thought that I had. It didn't really have any of the accompanying psychic feeling impressions. So maybe I should have ignored it instead of blurting it out to my best friend. But that will help you sort through that noise and get to know. What these psychic feelings are like for you. You know, one thing I do, I do occasionally do is like a, like a refresher warm up, all of them face down, shuffle them all up and pick a card, keep it face down and try to get a sense of what it is. After I've got my impressions, I flip it over and see where I'm at. And if it's the same, great, and if it's not the same, then I kind of try to plot out in my mind any correlation between what I was thinking and what it ended up being and what could that mean. That's a good way to learn tarot too.

39:14I love that. One thing I like to do with tarot or any other type of divination is spread them all out in front of me, get into that centered state and ask for the suit of cups and then run my hand over top of it until like the center of my palm tingles. Kind of like our old covenant used to talk about his hands turning on. You know, I'll wait until like my palm starts to turn on and get hot and then turn it and see if that's correct. And that's a good exercise. And you know, you can do that with talismans to charms, crystals, stones, even seashells, but I think that the key is the practice. Really, I mean, like you said, everybody is psychic, but not everybody uses the muscle, write it down, practice, find an activity that you like, pulling tarot cards, pulling runes, sitting quietly and listening from messages, asking your guides to talk to you or to give you messages, find a practice that works for you that feels right and continue to do it, exercise that muscle.

40:15And best thing to do is to record every step of the way so that you can look back and see if you're getting better, see what works for you and see what doesn't. I agree to disagree to agree, write it down about writing it down, write it down. There you go, even shell agree. You see, it must be a good idea. If even shell says to put it in a journal, must be a good practice for this. I didn't say the J word. I just write it down. That's right. Shot it down. Don't it down. That's the only J word we're allowed to say. Shot it down. So yeah, find what works for you, find that center, find your balance, find your bliss, find your confidence. Yes, be confident with it. Treat it like a conversation, treat it like you know you're going to get the message. Just be confident enough to know that you're getting that message. You can even say it out loud, say before you go to bed, I am going to dream about something important that will happen in my next week. And I will remember it in the morning.

41:16You know, say that, say it out loud to your receptive brain. And then in the morning, make sure you write it down fast because you'll, you'll forget that real quick. I feel like I should go do some meditation right now. Jeez. I'm psychically intuiting that Shell is ready to go have some tea, smoke some weed and pull a few tarot cards. You know, you're not too far off. We want you to definitely take some of these tips and tricks, give your psychic muscles a little flexing and like share, comment, whatever you like to do on the socials. But for all of the things that we've talked about tonight, again, just practice, practice folks. Practice and journal. So before Shell gets to upset with me for saying the J word, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Back on the Broomstick. Since we are coming up quickly to the first official day of spring, we will see you next week with another O Star episode. But in the meantime, be wise, be wicked and be psychically witchy.