Questions to Ask a Psychic Medium About Loved Ones Who Have Passed Away and What They Want to Say to Me About My Life
Questions for a reading where the subject is your own life: work, family, a decision in front of you, a promise you made. Written to keep the difference clear between hearing from someone who died and taking advice from the person sitting opposite you.
The questions
Open any question for the note
I want to keep this to the person who died rather than predictions about my life. Is that how you work?
Why ask it
Many practitioners offer mediumship and psychic readings in the same hour, and the two blend easily once the session starts. Setting the boundary at the outset means you are declining advice up front rather than negotiating it later while upset.
Do you separate a message from them and your own impression of my situation?
Why ask it
Ask them to label the two as they go. Much of what sounds like guidance from the dead is the practitioner's reading of the person in front of them, and knowing which is which changes how much weight any of it deserves.
If they have nothing to say about my life, will you tell me?
Why ask it
This is the release valve for an hour that has been paid for. Without it, quiet stretches tend to be filled with observations about your life that would fit most people who have recently lost someone.
Would they recognize my life now?
Why ask it
An open question with nowhere obvious to hide. A specific answer names something that has actually changed since the death, a move, a job, a birth, an illness, while a general answer tells you that they see you and are proud of you.
What did they think I was good at?
Why ask it
One of the more useful things you can ask, because you already know the answer and cannot easily be persuaded of a different one. Either it sounds like something they would have said or it sounds like a compliment for anybody.
Is there anything they used to worry about for me?
Why ask it
Almost every parent or partner had one particular worry, and it is usually not the flattering one. A reply that names something awkward and accurate carries more weight than a reassurance that they always knew you would be fine.
What would they make of the work I do now?
Why ask it
Useful mainly for what it surfaces about how you think they saw your work, which is often the real question underneath. Treat any career advice that follows as advice from a stranger with far less information than your closest friend has.
Would they have anything to say about my children?
Why ask it
Expect warmth, since it is the easiest thing in the room to supply. Anything that arrives as a concern about a child, particularly about their health or their safety, should go to a doctor or a teacher rather than being carried home as a message.
Is there anything they would say about the person I am with?
Why ask it
The most hazardous question here. A reading has no means of knowing anything about your partner, and disapproval attributed to a dead parent has ended relationships. If you hear it, set it aside and discuss it with people who know you both.
Is there anything about how I have been looking after myself?
Why ask it
Expect general remarks about rest and worry, which apply to nearly everyone recently bereaved. Anything specific about your body, a symptom, or a medication belongs with a doctor and should not be treated as coming from the person who died.
There is a decision in front of me. I do not want to be told what to do, but is there anything from them about it?
Why ask it
The wording does the work. Framed like this it invites a reflection rather than an instruction, and if you are handed an instruction anyway, that tells you clearly how this practitioner operates.
Would they have a view on a promise I made them?
Why ask it
Promises made at a bedside, about a house, a career, caring for a relative, or holding a family together, are often impossible to keep. Whatever comes back, the decision stays yours, and saying the promise out loud to a counselor may help more than negotiating it in a reading.
Is anything coming up about money?
Why ask it
Treat any answer here as a warning rather than as guidance. Statements about a will, a debt, an inheritance, or an investment are where readings do the most concrete and least reversible damage to families.
Is there anything you are picking up about me that has nothing to do with them?
Why ask it
This draws a clean line between the mediumship and the psychic reading, and having drawn it you can decide whether you want the second part at all. Some practitioners will say plainly that they do not do that, which is a good sign.
How confident are you about anything to do with my future?
Why ask it
Predictions cannot be tested at the time and are usually delivered at the same level of certainty as everything else. Someone who says they do not do futures, or who marks their own uncertainty, is being straight with you.
What do people usually do with advice from a session like this?
Why ask it
The answer reveals what the practitioner expects of you. A description of clients making large changes on the strength of an hour is a risk being described, not a credential, and it is a fair reason to keep your own counsel.
If I disagree with something you tell me, what then?
Why ask it
Watch whether disagreement is allowed or recast as resistance, blocked energy, or not being ready. The second is a closed system, and nothing you learn inside one can be checked against anything.
Would you write down anything you said about my future?
Why ask it
Written predictions can be compared with what actually happens, which is why they are often kept vague. Keeping the note and reading it in a year is the only honest test of this kind of material available to you.
Is there anything you are getting that does not fit my life at all?
Why ask it
Asking for the misses tells you more than asking for the hits. A practitioner who can say that something does not seem to apply is being honest, while one who insists everything applies somewhere is not saying anything falsifiable.
What would I still want to do next week, whatever I am told today?
Why ask it
For yourself, before you go in. A session that leaves your plans intact has told you something you can use, and one that turns them upside down deserves a week of ordinary life before you act on any of it.
Keeping a reading and a decision apart
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Two different things in one hour
Mediumship claims to relay something from a person who died. A psychic reading offers an interpretation of your life and what may come. Many practitioners do both, sometimes in the same sentence, and the transition is rarely announced. It is reasonable to say at the start that you only want the first, and to repeat it once if the session drifts. If you do want both, ask them to say which is which as they go, and note that guidance about your work, your relationships, or your money carries the authority of the person you are grieving whether or not it originated with them. That borrowed authority is what makes this kind of advice unusually hard to weigh.
Decisions not to make from a session
- Anything medical: starting or stopping treatment, ignoring a symptom, changing medication.
- Anything financial: a will, an inheritance, a loan, a property, an investment, or how much to keep paying a practitioner.
- Ending or beginning a relationship, or cutting contact with a family member.
- Moving house, leaving a job, or making a large change in the weeks immediately after a death.
- Anything a relative would learn about first from you saying that a dead parent instructed it.
Promises made to someone dying
- Promises made at a bedside are made under conditions nobody can plan for, and they are frequently impossible to keep as stated.
- Ask what the promise was actually for. Most were about somebody being cared for, not about a particular house, job, or arrangement.
- If keeping it is damaging you or your family, that is a conversation for the living people affected, and often for a counselor.
- Be wary of a reading that hardens a promise into an instruction, and equally of one that releases you from it too cheaply.
- Whatever you decide, the decision is yours and the responsibility is yours. No reading transfers either.
Asking without leading
- Do not describe the decision before you ask about it. "Is there anything about a decision?" gives away far less than naming the job or the city.
- Keep your answers to a few words, and let silences run rather than filling them.
- Note whether a general statement becomes specific only after you react to it.
- Ask for one thing at a time so that nothing gets answered by proxy.
- Record the session, and write down the parts about your future separately from the parts about the person who died.
If it has left you worse
Sometimes an hour like this leaves you more frightened or more unsettled than you were, particularly if you were told something about your health, your family, or the future. Say so to someone you trust, and take the specific worry to the person who can actually address it: a doctor for a symptom, a lawyer for a will, the relative concerned for a family matter. If you are going back often, or spending more than you can afford, treat that as a sign of how heavy the grief is rather than as a failing. Bereavement support through a hospice, a charity, a place of worship, or your doctor is usually free or low cost, runs for months, and asks you to give up nothing you believe.