Questions to Ask Spirits
Twenty questions for a seance, a vigil, or a sitting with a medium, in the order most sessions work best: who you are speaking to, whether they are willing, what they came to say, and how to end. Many people come to this while grieving, so the notes also cover what to do with an answer once you have one.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Who am I speaking to?
Why ask it
Opening with identity rather than a request slows the session and stops you filling the silence with the name you were hoping for. In a paid reading, notice whether a name is offered to you or gradually drawn out of you by a series of guesses.
Are you willing to talk with me tonight?
Why ask it
Asking permission sets the tone for everything that follows, and it gives you a defined moment at which you can decide not to continue. It also establishes that this is a conversation rather than a summoning.
How did you know me?
Why ask it
Relationship before message is the order that keeps a sitting honest. Answers such as an older relative who loved you fit almost everybody, and a reader who leans on them is describing a category rather than a person.
Is there something you came here to say?
Why ask it
Leaving the floor open, once, is more respectful than working through a list of your own and it avoids leading the answer. Write down whatever comes first in the exact words before you begin interpreting it.
Can you tell me something only you and I would know?
Why ask it
This is the oldest test there is and it is a fair one to ask. Expect nothing, and be careful with a reply broad enough to be true of most families, since that is where confident-sounding sessions usually live.
Is there anything you want me to understand about how you died?
Why ask it
For the bereaved this is often the question sitting underneath all the others. It seldom produces facts, but asking it aloud brings what you are actually carrying into a room where you can look at it.
Could you hear me when I talked to you?
Why ask it
Almost everyone who has lost someone has held months of one-sided conversation. Asking this tends to affect you more than any answer does, and that is not a failure of the session.
Is there anything you want said to someone else?
Why ask it
Speaking on behalf of the dead to the living is where this can do real harm, so decide before you ask whether you would pass anything on. Anything that would wound the other person is better kept to yourself.
Is there something you need me to stop doing?
Why ask it
The value of this one is that it invites something you would rather not hear, which is the opposite of what most sittings produce. The answers usually point at how you have been treating yourself since they died.
What should be done with the things you left behind?
Why ask it
Practical questions draw clearer answers because you already know most of the answer yourself. Families often use a sitting like this to make a decision about a house or a room they have been avoiding for a year.
Who have I misjudged?
Why ask it
This turns the session toward your own conduct rather than theirs. It generally names someone still living, which makes it one of the few questions here you can act on tomorrow.
What did I get wrong about you?
Why ask it
Grief simplifies people into a version that is easier to carry, usually kinder and flatter than the original. Asking this reopens the complicated person, who is normally the one you actually miss.
Is there something you want forgiven?
Why ask it
Naming what you are still angry about is more useful than deciding in advance that you are not. Unfinished anger toward someone who has died is very common and does not make you disloyal to them.
Do you forgive me?
Why ask it
Most people know which answer they want and are frightened of the one they expect. Whatever arrives, write it down and read it again in a week rather than acting on it the same night.
What would you say about the decision I'm facing?
Why ask it
Asking someone who knew you well tends to produce their real advice, because you can predict what they would have said. Treat the answer as their voice in your memory, which is where its authority honestly comes from.
Is there a sign you use, so I know when you're near?
Why ask it
Settling on one specific sign in advance is what keeps this from turning into a search for confirmation in everything. Afterward, be honest with yourself about how often that sign would have occurred anyway.
Do you want me to keep doing this, or am I doing it too often?
Why ask it
Sittings can become a way of not letting anyone go, particularly in the first year after a death. If you cannot easily imagine a month without one, that is worth discussing with a living person.
Are you at peace?
Why ask it
This is the question most bereaved people came for, and it is better arrived at slowly than used as an opener. Whatever you hear, notice what you feel on hearing it, because that reaction is the honest part of the evening.
Is there anything else, before I stop?
Why ask it
One last opening removes the pull to keep going for another hour on the chance of something more. It also marks the end deliberately, which matters most if you are sitting alone.
May I say goodbye for now, and thank you?
Why ask it
Closing out loud and formally is what lets you leave the session behind. People who stop abruptly tend to carry it around with them for the rest of the night.
Sitting carefully
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you begin
- Decide how long you will sit and what will end it. Sessions without a planned end tend to continue until someone is upset or exhausted.
- Write your questions down beforehand. Under the pressure of a quiet room people ask whatever they are most afraid of, in the least useful wording.
- Choose one person to ask for, if you are asking for anyone in particular, and say so out loud at the start.
- Do not sit alone if you are recently bereaved and having a bad week. Ask someone steady to be in the house, even in another room.
- Agree in advance that anyone present may stop the session without explanation.
Asking in a way you can trust afterward
Ask open questions and then wait, rather than offering names, dates, and details for confirmation. Anything you supply yourself will come back to you and feel like evidence later. Keep a written record in the exact words used, including your own, because memory rewrites a sitting quickly and generously. When something specific does arrive, note whether it could be checked, whether you had mentioned it earlier that evening, and how many people it would be true of. Doing this does not make the session less respectful; it means that whatever survives your own scrutiny is worth keeping.
Sitting with a medium
Before you book
Agree the length and the fee in advance, and be careful with anyone who requires a course of sessions to finish what they started. Say as little as possible about your loss when you make the booking.
During the reading
Answer with yes, no, or nothing. Long explanations hand over the material, and a reader working honestly will not need them.
Warning signs
Requests for large sums, offers to remove a curse or a block for a fee, claims that a relative is suffering until you pay, and pressure to keep returning. Any of these is a reason to leave.
Bringing someone with you
A second person remembers the reading differently from you and can tell you afterward what was actually said. If you are grieving heavily, this matters more than privacy.
Boards, recorders, and apps
- All of these produce ambiguous output that the mind reliably resolves into words and faces. Expect that, and hold the results loosely.
- With a board, the movement comes from the hands on it. Knowing that does not mean you have to stop, but it should change how much weight you give the message.
- With recordings, do not listen while someone tells you what to hear. Once you are told, you cannot unhear it.
- Never use these to answer a practical question about health, money, or someone's safety.
- Whatever you use, close it the same way each time and put it away. The ritual is for you, and it works.
Afterward
Eat something, speak to someone, and do something ordinary before you sleep. Read your notes again the next day; a sitting that felt overwhelming at midnight often reads as gentle in daylight, and the reverse happens too. If sessions are becoming frequent, if you feel worse rather than steadier after them, or if you find yourself making decisions on the strength of what you heard, talk to a bereavement counsellor or your own doctor. Grief that has stalled is treatable, and nothing in a practice like this is a substitute for that conversation.