Fear of the word ‘no’ may be holding back your mediumship more than you realise.

If you’re stuck saying, ‘I’ve got the initial J,’ instead of saying, ‘I’ve got the name Jackie,’



Or ‘I’ve got a mother-figure with me,’ instead of ‘I have your mum here,’



Or giving flowers, ‘I love yous’, or a birthday/ anniversary in X month, or other clichés, then you may well be subconsciously trying to avoid getting a ‘no’.



This doesn’t mean you’re not a medium, or that your mediumship is bad. You’ve simply reached the edge of your comfort zone. You’ve found the limit of what you can receive while still being self-conscious about appearing wrong.



But you will be SHOCKED at the depth and specificity of evidence that can come through when you stop worrying about getting a ‘no’. Letters turn to names, months turn to specific dates, and overused clichés turn to unique events that belong to one communicator.



Today in The Spirit Circle, I’m going to help you overcome your fear of ‘no’ once and for all by playing a special little game I like to call ‘It’s wrong when it’s right and it’s right when it’s wrong.’



You will come away smiling, amazed at what spirit can do through you, and you will have new found courage to say the more detailed evidence, even if it means getting a no.

Develop your mediumship with us and overcome fear of ‘no’ for good! Here’s the link to join, see you at 3pm UK time today (Sunday).

Join The Spirit Circle

There are so many mediums to choose from, it’s difficult to know which ones you can trust, or even which ones are the right fit for you.

The best way to assess a medium is to watch them work.

It strikes me that, while you may have read my writing (thank you!), you may not have seen me give a mediumship message before.

Sharing mediumship readings publicly is one of those areas where I feel a wee bit of moral conflict. The content machine that is social media demands video, and if you want to be taken seriously as a medium, the most effective way is show the world what you can do.

However, mediumship is also deeply personal and emotional. And information that comes through can be sensitive in nature. You need a thick skin to cast what is precious to you out into social media for the world to see, and judge, and comment.

That’s why there’s not more of my work online. I’m protective of my sitters. But I also recognize the necessity so I’m busy finding ways that work for everyone.

I do have one reading I can share with you. This sitting happened a few years ago, and as I talk about it now, I can still feel the quiet, stoic, and deeply affectionate personality of the woman.

She gave some wonderfully specific evidence (a kitchen towel with all the family’s face on it? What?) and delivered her story with such clarity and reassurance for her granddaughter. I hope you enjoy it.

Many thanks to Jacqueline for kind permission to share this sitting.

If you resonate with how spirit and I work together, and you’re getting ‘the nudge’, then I invite you to a demonstration of mediumship tomorrow, Sunday 31st May, from 9pm - 10.30pm UK time. It’s happening on Zoom, in collaboration with Soul Journey Sundays.

Get Tickets

Get your tickets at the above link, but hurry! Registration closes soon.

Thanks for reading / watching, and I look forward to seeing you at our mediumship event tomorrow.

Mediumship that has the power to heal and transform does not come only from doing more mediumship, it comes from the life we live in the moments in between mediumship.

Many wonderful mediums I know REGRET the time spent sitting in meditation, or dashing from sitting to sitting, when it came at the cost of happy and meaningful experiences in their own life.

Spirit does not require you to 'check out' of your own life. If you want to be a fabulous medium, you're required to go 'all in' on living.

If this idea resonates, why not join us for The Spirit Circle today? We're going to work on bringing through happy memories as evidence.

THE SPIRIT CIRCLE: BECOME A MEMBER

Spending time with you and your loved ones in spirit is one of the great pleasures of my life, second only to chilling with my husband and kids. And although I’m pretty exhausted from caring for my babies (preventing my 18-month-old son from somersaulting off the dining room table is rather intense!), I’m actually really happy to be back at work. Mediumship energizes me. I feel grateful to be in a season of my life where I can enjoy the miracle of motherhood and the miracle of mediumship.

As we step into the next season of connection, growth, and spiritual refinement, I’m pleased to share a fresh wave of upcoming mediumship events in May, designed to nourish both your soul and your skillset. Whether you’re someone who loves attending demonstrations for the healing, wonder, and evidence of survival they bring, or you’re a developing or working medium committed to deepening your craft, this month is full of opportunities to experience the magic of spirit together.

As you explore the events below, I invite you to tune into what your spirit is craving right now. Whether you’re looking to make contact with a loved one, or you’re ready to enhance your mediumship with me, I hope you’ll find something that lights you up and supports your journey.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming up. I can’t wait to share these experiences with you!

The Spirit Circle: Tuesday 5^th May and all following Tuesdays from 7pm – 9pm BST / GMT (Online)

Want to deepen the evidence and healing impact of your mediumship in a supportive, nurturing group? Each week we try a different approach to enhance our connection to spirit. On Tuesday 5^th May I’ll teach you a never-before-seen method for receiving names from spirit. Your first session with us is free.

The Spirit Circle: Find Out More

Celtic Realms Retreat: Wednesday 13^th and Thursday 14^th May (Ireland + Edinburgh, Scotland)

I’m delighted to be a guest teacher among many fabulous mediums at this Celtic Realms Retreat. This is an exciting opportunity for mediums of all levels of interest and ability to explore different ways of working among the magic of Scotland and Ireland. I believe the retreat is sold out, but if you’re getting the nudge to attend, they may be able to accommodate one or two last-minute local guests.

It’s going to be a wonderfully healing and inspiring retreat. I’m teaching a segment on how to bring through information from the communicator that’s both evidentially impressive and emotionally meaningful.

Fill in the contact form to enquire:

Celtic Retreat: Enquire

Soul Journey Sundays: Demonstration of Mediumship with Lauren Robertson, Sunday 31^st May 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 9pm BST (Online)

I’m so excited to invite you to a truly magical Soul Journey Sundays event. This is an online demonstration of mediumship where I’ll be your guide into the luminous, love‑filled world of spirit. For ninety minutes, I’ll weave together evidence, personality, and the unmistakable presence of your loved ones in spirit. Every attendee has the chance to receive a reading. This is a rare opportunity to experience my work in an intimate, gallery‑style setting. Join me, in collaboration with Soul Journey Sundays, on May 31st, 2026, for a meeting of connection, healing, and the eternal bonds that never fade. Tickets are limited and there will be no recording. Reserve your spot now and be part of this unforgettable event.

Find out more and get your tickets here:

Soul Journey Sundays

Thanks for reading, I hope to see you at one of these fabulous events!

Imagine giving a demonstration of mediumship, on stage, in front of an audience of 100 people.

During a message to a man from his sister in spirit, you speak about a necklace that holds a four-leaf clover.

‘Yes! I have it here!’ He exclaims.

He rummages around in his shirt pocket, revealing a small purple, velvet pouch. He carefully pulls at the drawstring and tips out a gold chain with a pendant.

He holds it up in the air triumphantly for all to see. And there it is. The four-leaf clover, held in resin within the pendant.

The audience gasps in amazement.

In mediumship demonstrations, meaningful objects are a particularly important style of evidence because they are tangible and concrete. They can be validated and experienced by the audience with their own eyes. Physical objects that belonged to the communicator also offer compelling evidence because they are emotionally resonant, and often cherished by the recipient, to remember that their loved one really existed. Meaningful objects are something connected to them that can still be physically touched.

Items that hold memory, identity, or significance for the communicator may be everyday things (a mug, a watch, a gardening tool) or deeply personal keepsakes (a letter, a piece of jewellery, a book with an inscription inside).

It can be something silly, like a giant foam finger that’s up the loft / attic that you bought at a WWE wrestling match you went to together. Or something deeply valuable, like wedding china that’s been passed down four generations.

Meaningful objects are also fantastic evidence of survival in 1:1 readings. At Christmas, I gave a reading to a man whose daughter had passed away.

I told him, ‘I see her with a dog. I see her crouching down next to a brown and white dog.’

He began to cry. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. This is a photograph I have of her. I’ll send it to you so you can see it. It’s exactly as you described.’

Because they are so tangible and concrete, meaningful objects can have a powerful healing effect on grieving people who are struggling with skepticism, cynicism, doubt, or faith in the afterlife. Some people have the mindset of ‘if I can see it with my own eyes, then I’ll believe it.’ And describing an object where there’s no way you could have known about it, is a way of them experiencing what spirit can do that works with their skepticism and doubt.

I’d never met this man. He knows himself there’s no way I could’ve known about this photograph. And he’s right. I didn’t. Until his daughter in spirit showed it to me.

This is one area of your mediumship where, if you can master it, it can truly take your work from good to amazing, and inconsistent to consistent.

Anyone can say ‘They gave you a gold ring’ and probably be right. Or ,‘they’re handing me a bunch of flowers’ and have that be accepted as evidence, kind of…

But what if you could open your mediumship to the bizarrely obscure, and deeply weird and wonderful objects that truly make a person who they are?

• Concert tickets from the last gig he ever went to.

• Her favourite mug that was made by her grandchild at a weekend pottery class.

• Not a box of old photos (easy!)…but which photo? The one with her crouching down next to her brown and white dog, her best friend.

• The exact one of her husband’s shirts she wears to bed every night.

• The bear that has a recording of his child’s heartbeat inside.

Imagine how your mediumship would be elevated to new levels of accuracy, intimacy and insight if you develop your ability to receive both the details and the meaning of important objects?

You may think this is too difficult, or not possible for you. Maybe you’re very new to mediumship, and this all seems just too good to be true for a newbie. Or maybe you’re so long in the tooth that you’ve accepted the limits of what you get from spirit.

But the reality is that receiving meaningful objects is one of the easiest ways you can take your mediumship up a notch (or 10), whether you’re a beginner or a professional.

In my recent Platform Perfection class, I taught some never-before-seen mediumship techniques to guide mediums on receiving objects, and the evidence they produced with this exercise blew me away! During the practice session, one medium described a yellow beetle car that was a toy. Another student immediately put her hand up to take the evidence. She instantly produced the car (which has belonged to a young man in spirit) from a shelf behind her computer! We were all gobsmacked! It was wonderful to see and will stay with me for life.

And I’m going to show you the exact same method in Tuesday’s Spirit Circle live call.

In Tuesday’s session (April 28th) I’m going to teach you how to:

1. Make a strong link with spirit that allows vivid and detailed objects to appear in your mind’s eye.

2. Expand your attention to include unusual and detailed objects that you couldn’t possibly have guessed.

3. Deliver this style of evidence in the context of the rest of the reading, for maximum healing impact with the least amount of effort from you and spirit.

PLUS

You’ll have the opportunity to practice at least twice with other members of the group and receive detailed and immediate feedback.

Whether you’re a newbie, or a professional, you are very welcome to The Spirit Circle. It’s mixed abilities here, and we believe in continual learning regardless of current proficiency.

So if you want to get great at receiving vivid and emotional objects in your mediumship, start your membership in The Spirit Circle today.

Join The Spirit Circle (Free Trial)

Ps. Did I mention your first session is free? If you join by Tuesday, you can literally learn this with no cost to you.

Pps. When you join, you’ll get access to recordings of previous Spirit Circle meetings so you can soak in the magic from those too.

I can’t wait to see you there!

Lauren

Join The Spirit Circle (Free Trial)

Pppppppppps. Please comment with your own experiences of receiving objects from spirit communicators. I’ll read all comments and reply to the first 10.

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Warning:

Sensitive content ahead discussing

grief, death, assisted dyingand child loss.

If you can stare at your bedroom wall, numb and vacant, for 30 minutes, you’re probably still grieving.

If an ocean of tears suddenly wells up inside you when you hear a certain song, you’re probably still grieving.

Clean the worktop, mop the floor, shred the documents, arrange the cans in the cupboard, make a cup of tea, shuffle some papers in your office, wipe the countertops again…forever…don’t stop and think…If this is you, you’re probably still grieving.

If you’re numb to the warm sun on your skin as the bees buzz, you’re probably still grieving.

To grieve the death of a loved one is to be lost in a dark forest without a map.

Grief is the unfulfilled potential for love.

It can take the place of love that has been lost, love that is unstable or uncertain, or love that has never been but is badly wanted.

And it’s strange and terrifying in all its forms.

And just like trying to find your way out of an unfamiliar forest, healing from grief takes time. And distance. It takes energy, and pain. It takes circling back and going over old ground. You cannot force your way out of the dark forest. Nor can you go around it. The dark forest must spit you out. And it does so only when you’ve trodden its acres so many times you could do it with your eyes closed.

Some people never make it out of the dark forest. Yesterday, I read about Wendy Duffy, a British woman who, today, is dying by assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. Her son, Marcus, passed away in tragic circumstances when he was 23, and Wendy has never been able to heal. Her grief is so all-consuming that a body of experts (rightly or wrongly) have agreed with her that her life is not worth living.

I wonder, if Wendy had evidence of Marcus’ survival, she’d change her mind and continue her journey among us, knowing she’d see him again one day?

When we lose someone we love, mediums go through the dark forest the same as everyone else.

But a medium’s grief may differ from most people’s in one important way:

We believe, nay, we know, that we will be reunited with our cherished ones again, at the time of our own passing.

Mediums believe that the human soul can transcend death. And through our mediumship, that is, the ability to convey evidence and messages from the departed, we try to introduce those who are grieving to the possibility of survival.

How would your grief change if you had evidence that death is a long, pining absence, rather than permanent separation?

This one transformation in your perspective could have far-reaching consequences. For someone like Wendy Duffy, it could mean the difference between feeling able to continue with her own life or being determined to die herself.

A long absence is difficult. But it’s tolerable. It’s tolerable because you are strengthened by the knowledge that you will see each other again.

Surviving an unbearable loss is the first step, but how can you have a life that is good, and not just tolerable, after a cherished someone dies?

The power of mediumship pivots around this one belief:

They died. They have survived. And so will I.

Borrow this belief. Entertain the reality of survival as a medium does. This one powerful belief may start to spread in unexpected ways, bringing ease and healing to both your inner world, and your outer experience of life.

Here are 7 ways in which belief in survival might help you overcome grief, integrate loss, and live well alongside it.

1. The reality of survival helps you to heal from depression and accept your new life.

You will not make any new memories with your loved one in their physical form. They will never sit in their favourite chair again. You will not feel the warmth from their body, nor hear the love-laced way they called your name. You cannot take that trip you always talked about, nor watch another rerun of your favourite show.

Accepting each of these gouges that have been scratched out of your life, and your identity, is excruciating. When someone dies, we lose their physical presence, their body, but we also lose our witness to our shared memories, experiences, rituals and dreams.

You are forced to make a new future. One you never imagined. One with new goals, rituals, relationships and dreams. This is not easy.

But belief in survival makes it a little bit easier. Your loved one may not be there with you physically, but when we understand they do have a view of our lives, and that they’re still invested in our happiness, we can allow them to walk with us into our new life, from their place in the spirit world. From here, creating new rituals, living our dreams, or developing new desires for life, becomes more accessible. We do it with them and for them. When we accept survival, the crumbling sensation of the centre falling out of our lives can be transformed into new challenge to be bravely faced. Their continued presence gives us back a little optimism and energy.

2. The reality of survival helps you heal from helplessness and find meaning again.

One of the hardest aspects of losing someone is the feeling of helplessness.

There’s nothing you could’ve done.

Spirit communicators bring this message through to grieving relatives regularly through my mediumship. It’s testament to how corrosive the feeling of helplessness is that they feel the need to do so. However, the idea that ‘there’s nothing you could’ve done’ is not particularly comforting. Either you were helpless, or there was something you could’ve done but failed to do. That sounds a lot like a rock and a hard place.

But believing in survival takes the sting out of helplessness. Part of the misery of helplessness is not being able to prevent the suffering of someone we love, and part of the misery is having no power to stop their death, which seems like a permanent loss.

But mediums know that’s not true. Our loved ones who have died are just in the other room. They are free, and they persist. Belief in survival returns some agency, dignity and strength to you and your loved ones who have passed, thus easing the pain of helplessness.

3. The reality of survival helps you heal from anger by permitting you to accept what has been lost (and that not everything has been lost).

How could this have happened? Why them? Why me? How could she have left me? How could he not fight this? Death gives rise to anger for those left behind. And it’s totally understandable. Anger at ourselves. Anger at those who left us. Anger at those who could not save them. Anger at God.

Anger is denial. It’s fighting against what is because what is is too painful.

Accepting that someone we love has died is accepting that we have no control over anything. And for some, that is simply accepting the unacceptable. Being asked to accept the unacceptable is where anger comes from.

But if you believe, ‘this is only goodbye for now. I am being asked to tolerate a long absence,’ anger is diffused. There is nothing to be enraged by. A long absence is do-able. It’s acceptable.

The reality of survival asks you to accept that your person has passed, and that they are finished with their physical form. It is not true that if you accept this you have lost them entirely. Survival means they remain a spiritual being. You can find new closeness with them in this form – a being of love, energy, light and vibration. This is the part of them that cannot be destroyed. But to know them this way, you must accept their passing. You must let go of anger and accept what is.

4. The reality of survival helps you heal from sadness, by giving you permission to focus on what has been gained.

It may feel slightly controversial, and extremely guilt inducing, to admit that you gained something valuable through the passing of a loved one. Perhaps an acquaintance stepped up in your hour of need, and now you see you have a true, loving friend in them. Maybe you were caring for your loved one 24/7 and now they’ve passed, you have time to do things that nourish your hurting heart. Or it could be that their passing triggered abilities and desires you didn’t know you had – mediumship, writing, music, growing plants. Or maybe their death has meant you can move house to be closer to your new grandchild.

It can feel icky to admit that good things have come out of someone’s death, however, gratitude remains a powerful healer whatever the circumstances. Adopting the belief that your loved one is not gone forever, but has simply changed form, can help you give yourself permission to find the good in life again. Living your life well is not a betrayal. It’s what your loved ones in spirit want for you. Belief in their survival can help you generate new things to be thankful for without feeling guilty.

5. The reality of survival can help you cherish what you had.

The strength of your grief is an indicator of the depth of your love. If you’re really struggling after loss, the struggle itself is a sign that real love was there and good times were had. But through the fog of grief the good times can be all too easily forgotten. Partly because focusing on the good times might feel inappropriate, partly because what was good is obstructed by the magnitude of the pain. And partly because you may feel too resentful about your loss to be grateful. Contemplating survival helps to lessen the grip of resentment. If they have transcended death, and you will see them again, you don’t have to grip furiously to your loss, you can soften and find thankfulness for what you shared together, knowing that what has been will be again.

6. The reality of survival can help you heal from hopelessness by opening your eyes to what persists.

Openness to survival often precedes signs from your loved ones in spirit. And signs from spirit can work powerfully to shift your grief. Even if you’re not sure we survive death, you can entertain the possibility that we could, and that might be enough for you to start seeing signs that your loved one is trying to get a message to you. Signs often come in the form of small objects such as feathers or coins, or beautiful beings such as butterflies or birds. But they can also take the shape of strange synchroncities, that is, coincidences that leave you with a feeling of wonder and amazement.

7. The reality of survival helps you exist in contradiction, healing the pain of grief just enough that you can go on.

After loss, it’s natural for life to come to a standstill for a time. The difficulty is getting back on the horse once you are out of the habit of living. Re-entry is bound to be rough for a while.

Work with the possibility of survival. Imagine your loved ones safe and well, observing you from the other side. This might just give you enough energy to get out of bed, get in the shower, get dressed, and meet the day. Meditate on a vision of them surrounded by golden light, first thing in the morning. They are the first thing you think of as soon as your eyes spring open anyway. Make it intentional, and let their spirit help you recover your life, and your self.

This article is dedicated to Wendy Duffy and her son, Marcus. 100% of the paid subscriber proceeds from this article will be donated to Helping Parents Heal, a charity that supports parents who have lost children.

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If you enjoyed reading about 7 ways that belief in survival can aid your grief, please share or restack this article.

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I hope you can borrow at least one of these ideas to help you grow through your grieving process.

Please tell me in a comment: Do you believe in survival? How has this belief helped you move through grief?

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Ps. Mediums: Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could describe a photograph to your sitter or audience member during a reading, and the sitter pulled that very photograph from their bag for all to see? This is what we’re working on in this week’s Spirit Circle. Receiving meaningful objects in your mediumship is a fantastic form of evidence because objects are factually concrete, tangible, and shareable for all to see. Join The Spirit Circle and learn how to receive objects in your mediumship. Your first session is free.

Join The Spirit Circle

I may have written to you recently, or you may be reading this article after not hearing from me for a long time. At some point in the last decade, you signed up for a free thing, bought my book, registered for one of my events, or subscribed to hear from me via Substack or another channel.

Thank you for that.

I’ve been slowly returning to work after maternity leave, and I’ve gathered all previous channels where you might have heard from me, and brought you all together here, on Substack. If you have kids you’ll understand the need for streamlining and simplification!

I’m writing this article to reintroduce myself to you, in the hopes that we can continue to be in touch. If you don’t want that, that’s fine too. You can unsubscribe at any time (even now, if you like!)

Anyway, by way of re-introduction, my name’s Lauren. I’m a lifelong medium, and I write about survival of human consciousness after death and related topics. Mediumship has been my profession for almost a quarter of a century now, and I’m passionate about sharing my knowledge to bring on the next generation of compassionate, confident and accurate mediums.

I’d consider myself a confident medium now, but it wasn’t always that way.

I was a sensitive kid. I could catch a vibe if something was wrong with the grownups in my life, and the playground was utterly deafening. Beyond emotional sensitivity and sensitive hearing, I was always told, ‘you have an old head on young shoulders’.

This sensitivity blossomed into mediumship through a bittersweet confluence of loss, joy, and guidance from source in the form of synchronicities.

Bereavement makes mediums. I think this is true of almost all of us. Our cat, Coco, died when I was in primary school. She was 24 years old. The loss of a pet is so incredibly hard. They are unconditional love embodied.

Then my mum’s father, Grandpa Dale, died when I was 14. I remember going to school and standing with my hand poised over the classroom door, unable to make myself go in because I was crying so hard and couldn’t stop.

Besides Grandpa Dale’s passing, my teenage years were a difficult time in my life, full of turmoil, confusion and unwanted change. I felt completely alone and abandoned for reasons I may talk about one day, but not now.

But it was the death of my Gran Robertson, Mamie, when I was 17 that hit me the hardest and triggered my mediumship.

Those of you who have read my book, The Medium in Manolos, will know that my Gran and I were very close. Every kid needs one adult in their life who adores them and delights in them, and she was that for me.

She developed breast cancer and kept it a secret until it was too late. She died on Valentines Day.

Shortly after her death, she came to me in a dream. She told me that death was only a change, and that she was very much alive and feeling well again. She placed one index finger lightly on each of my hips and lifted me off the ground as if I were weightless. She told me that it was my life’s mission to show people that we continue on after death. I had no idea what she was talking about.

For two years prior to my gran’s death, I began reading everything I could about spirituality. Now, looking back, I understand that I was searching for a stable, loving parent in God, to fill that vacancy in my heart, and in my life. I gravitated towards paganism, dream analysis and angels. I was often ill with tonsilitis, and time spent in bed was spent learning all I could about these subjects, culminating in my teaching myself to read angel cards.

One day, at school, the headmaster came round and announced that we were going to set up some stalls in the common room, and devise activities to do or things to sell to raise money for charity. Those who participated would be exempt from class for the day. I happened to have my angel cards in my bag, and I’d do anything to get out of maths, so I set myself up at a table in the common room and offered angel card readings in exchange for donations.

At first, it was a trickle. I read for my friend Holly, and told her she was going to be a midwife. She’s still a midwife to this day.

A trickle turned into a queue out the door populated by the school’s football team, among an assortment of other kids.

My very last reading of the day was my maths teacher!

As I wrapped up my cards and my table cloth, I felt completely elated.

You’re supposed to be doing this. The gentle voice said.

Things went a bit wrong at school after that. Between illness, loneliness, angst and a lack of guidance, I just stopped going. I was alone in my bedroom a lot, reading about spirituality, or out with boys and men who had no business having access to me. No one cared who I was with or what I was doing. I was lucky not to end up pregnant, missing or dead.

I remember the day school asked me to leave and never come back. The drama department, which, ironically, had been my favourite subject, was the first domino that sent the others falling.

Between my absences and an embarrassing instance of being overheard calling another student a ‘shithead’, they developed a hatred and unforgiveness towards me. I apologized instantly and profusely for what I had done wrong. They didn’t accept it. I told them if I lost the credits from their class I’d get kicked out of school. They didn’t care. Which is a pretty shameful way to treat a teen whose sudden change in behaviour is clearly an indication that something is wrong at home.

The day I got kicked out of school was a sunny day. I remember sitting on the bus with mixed feelings of relief, elation, sadness and fear. My main thought was ‘my mum’s going to kill me’. So I made a plan that, when I got home, I’d go on the computer and find a job so that I could say, ‘I got kicked out of school, but I also got a job.’

So I booted up our computer and waited for the ‘beep beep boop’ of dial up. I went to the Job Centre website, where you go to become employed as a waitress, a shelf stacker, or a call-centre operative. Normal stuff.

I filled out a form to be matched instantly with appropriate jobs in my area.

It asked me questions like:

Are you creative?

Do you like people?

What hours can you work?

I clicked submit while thinking, ‘no job could possibly fit these preferences for a 16 year old who just got kicked out of school’.

The search returned one listing:

‘Psychics, mediums and angel card readers wanted in Glasgow and surrounding.’

My jaw fell open and the hairs on my arms stood up. I could feel the benevolent gaze of source resting upon me, guiding me down this path.

Immediately, I called the owner of the ad and was invited to her home for an interview, and to give her a test reading. I was so nervous. I really wanted this. I had my angel cards in my school bag as I approached her home and rang her doorbell. Her name was Ali. The owner of Second Sight.

The interview went well and I was offered a job as a reader at Second Sight, an event company that hosted spirituality events all over Scotland. I’ll never forget my first night on the job. I was supposed to be shadowing another reader to learn the ropes. I arrived at Ali’s house only to be told that two of the readers had called in sick. Not only would I have to give 10 full, paid readings with no shadowing or training, but I’d have to give a demonstration as well, as part of the floor show!

I excused myself to the bathroom. My face was grey and my lips were blue. My hands trembled. Despite this, I agreed. The gentle voice inside nudged me and told me I could do it.

The event was at a pub called The Black Bull in Cumbernauld, just outside Glasgow.

We opened the door and the noise from 120-some women, all there for a psychic night, was incredible. Imagine? 16 years old, not even legal to be in a pub, expected to command an audience with no rehearsal, and tell mature women what in their life needs fixing on behalf of “the angels”. I laugh now, thinking about it. Thank god for the AUDACITY and BRAVERY / STUPIDITY of teenagers.

That was the start of a long career with Second Sight in which I must’ve done tens of thousands of readings and public demonstrations all over Scotland, and eventually, further afield. Over the years, more and more spirit people appeared in the readings I gave. At first with the angels, then through the tarot. I developed such a love for the unique intimacy and healing power of mediumship, that I eventually dropped all my tools (angel cards, tarot, tea leaves etc.) to focus exclusively on bringing forward evidence of survival.

I became restless, and my time with Second Sight came to an end when I could no longer ignore my deep hunger to continue my education.

I had desperately wanted to go to University, but my unfortunate departure from school had closed that door. By this point, I would be classed as a ‘mature’ student, and this opened another opportunity for me to go to Uni.

I wanted to study Philosophy and English Literature at University of Glasgow, so I could write books about mediumship. I applied for a place on a pre-degree year, which I had to complete to qualify to enter the degree program. I received my grade, and I got in! Being at Uni was some of the happiest years of my life. I graduated with honours in 2015, having specialized in consciousness studies, and I won the best-in-year prize for English literature along the way.

By this point, I’d had some miraculous experiences with spirit. Through my mediumship, the spirit world had reunited an adopted child (now a woman) with her birth mother, added hundreds of years of life to various people through timely health comments that led to and treatment, and restored families torn apart by hurt and misunderstanding.

I had a solid roster of regular clients (and a loooong waitlist). I was giving dems at spiritualist churches, corporate events, charity nights, and my own events. Through being self-taught, I had developed my own way of deepening and evolving my mediumship through introspection, self-understanding, and transcending the human-made blocks of fear, self-doubt and discouragement. I spent a year training as a success coach for mediums, and around that time, I had an idea for a book. I wanted to write a training manual for mediums based on introspection and overcoming fears and blocks. Besides mediumship, I loved fashion, and I wanted to encourage mediums to accept their whole selves as the instrument for spirit, even the parts they judged as irrelevant or even unspiritual. Whether you’re into fashion, fishing or films, it all contributes to your unique blend with spirit. The title The Medium in Manolos was given to me by the gentle voice one day, in the shower.

It was a dream come true to be offered a book deal by Hay House. I had read so many of their authors at different points in my life, and in 2017, The Medium in Manolos was published. If you bought it, borrowed it, read it, or listened to it. Thank you.

Across 2017 and 2018, right after my book was published, I was hurtled through another huge surge of instability and transformation in my life. Here’s what happened in 12 months:

• Published The Medium in Manolos with my dream publisher, Hay House.

• My maternal grandmother, Gran Dale, passed away.

• I quit drinking.

• I learned to drive.

• I got carbon monoxide poisoning and had to move home.

• My fiancé left the country for 7 months to shoot a movie and started a relationship with another woman.

• I went through a separation and moved home again.

• I got my coaching certification and travelled to Paris, LA, Florence, Miami and Cape Town.

• I started the coaching arm of my company with great success.

• I had both the most money I’d ever had, and the least.

• I had both the most time I’d ever had, and the least.

And right at the end of 2018, I met a wonderful man - protective, loyal, devoted and handsome - who is now my husband.

I’ll never know how so many highs and lows fit into one year, nor how I survived them all! But here we are, still.

Since meeting my husband, Corbin, in 2018, my priorities have been finding stability, making a home, and starting a family. Doing so has healed prior wounds in my heart that I thought were unhealable.

Corbin and I got married in 2022, our daughter arrived in 2023, and our son arrived in 2024.

Becoming a mother has enriched my mediumship in many ways. I’ll write an article about it soon, but the short version is that I nearly lost my life giving birth to my daughter, and I was visited by blue beings during the birth of my son. I saw that birth and death are the meeting points of a circle, and that the spirit world is the next room to ours, separated by the flimsiest of paper walls.

In the short time I’ve known them, my kids have taught me the true meaning of love, and caused me to reckon with the corresponding depth that grief could go. This has added new weight and meaning to my work with spirit.

In 2025 we bought our first home in a pretty suburb outside Glasgow. We’ve been renovating it, and quietly raising our little family.

2026 is a big year (as if the others haven’t been!). I turn 40 in July. My daughter is in nursery a few days per week so I can finally come up for air after the deep immersion that is early motherhood. And I’m ready to get back to work.

I’m doing the most I can with what little time I have outside of motherhood! We have just wrapped on Platform Perfection which is a 9 week course for mediums who want to master public demonstrations. I absolutely loved teaching this class, and the mediums who joined were a sheer delight.

I’m also in the early stages of a PhD by publication under the supervision of Professors Chris Roe and Callum E Cooper. Currently, I’m writing about whether spirit communicators have agency which is distinct from that of the sitter and the medium. Spoiler alert: I think they do.

I’m also writing for you here on Substack. I’m giving dems and teaching workshops as a guest speaker at events on the condition that they require zero planning or organization from me. And I’ve launched The Spirit Circle. It’s a weekly meeting on Zoom for mediums who want to deepen their mediumship in a supportive space through consistency, introspection, and practice readings with feedback. We meet each Tuesday from 7pm-9pm UK time, and we’re open for all levels of mediumship development from beginner to professional.

Thank you for your precious time and attention in reading this far. This is the first time I’ve mentioned many of the details of my story, especially the ones that don’t fit the ‘love and light’ narrative, which is an idea often deployed to smother the sometimes-uncomfortable nuances of life.

I hope you’ll stay subscribed for more words on mediumship, but if not, that’s ok. You’ll be missed, but life, and mediumship, have taught me to take the bitter with the sweet.

Lauren

Ps. One thing I love about Substack vs. other newsletter platforms is that you can share your thoughts too! I’d love to get to know a bit about you and how we met in a comment below. I’ll read them all and reply to the first 10.

Mediums love to think that receiving names is some mythical level of connection that’s just out of reach. Or you may believe that receiving names is due to some extra blessing bestowed upon a sacred few. But the truth is far less glamorous and far more human: most mediums talk themselves out of receiving names.

Names are slippery. They vanish the moment we hear them, yet they also one of the most powerful pieces of evidence we can offer in a reading. Names land with weight. They turn a vague “I think this might be your gran” into a moment of deep recognition and absolute certainty about survival.

In this article, I’m sharing seven strategies for receiving names in your mediumship that are delightfully un‑mystical, rooted in real practice, and surprisingly effective. Some will stretch you. Some will make you wonder why on earth no one told you this sooner. But all of them will help you build the inner pathways that allow spirit to drop a name into your awareness with clarity, confidence, and ease.

1. Use people’s names more in daily conversation

You’re at great-aunt Jemima’s 352^nd birthday party (at least it feels that way), when your dear old cousin thrice removed introduces himself to you, how do you respond?

‘Hello, my name’s Cuthbert. I’m Jemima’s distant cousin on her father’s side.’

Eyes cast down, you mutter, ‘Hey, nice to meet you,’ over the bellowing vocals of Abba’s Dancing Queen.

Distracted by the sudden (and disturbing) thought that you left the oven on at home, you instantly forget this chap’s name as soon as it left his lips.

‘Heid lik’ a sieve’ as we say here in Scotland. Translation: Your brain has the retentive power of a vessel with holes in it.

If you don’t use people’s names enough in life, you’ll struggle to receive names in your mediumship. Your mediumship is made of energetic pathways that spirit communicator’s can use to get their point across to you. And these pathways are formed by the experiences of your own life. One of the best ways you can begin to receive names in your mediumship, is to train yourself to use people’s names more in life.

‘Hi Cuthbert, I’m Lauren. Nice to meet you. Are you having fun, Cuthbert? Do you like Abba?’

The simple act of prioritizing remembering and using people’s names in daily life will create the energetic pathways in your mind for the spirit world to use in your mediumship.

I especially like to do this with dogs. If I’m out walking with the kids and we pass a nice dog, I’ll ask the owner, ‘what’s his / her name?’

I don’t care about the owner’s name, of course, just the dog’s.

2. Put more names into your brain

Before the phone book made its way to the spirit world, I used to tell my students to read the phone book. Yes, really. I’m not sure what the current version of that would be, maybe, scroll through your friends list on social media?

Anyway, the point is, the more exposure you have to names, and names of different cultures and countries, the more easily names will come in your mediumship. Albert Best was one of the greats. He received names and addresses in his mediumship with stunning accuracy and consistency. And the main reason for this is because his former career was as a postman! All day, every day, he stared at names and addresses. If you want to get good at giving names, try doing the same.

Set a timer for 10 minutes, grab your phone, and just scroll through your friends list saying each name out loud as you come to it. Note whether names come more easily to you in readings after you do this.

3. Ask spirit to give you more names more clearly

Another Scottish saying for you: Shy weans dinnae git sweeties.

Translation: Shy kids don’t get treats.

If you want to receive more names in your mediumship, try actually telling spirit this and asking for help to make it so. You may feel that your mediumship is only yours, and it’s up to you alone to make names happen. Or maybe you think your mediumship will never quite be good enough and you’ve accepted it for what it is. But a truth that is easily forgotten is that mediumship is a collaboration between you and spirit. You can ask them to figure out how to get names to you. Trust that they will respond.

4. Trust the names from your own life

Last week, one of my mediumship coaching clients gave me a reading as part of her coaching. She picked up on a female friend of mine who’d passed.

She relayed lots of detailed memories, but she didn’t give me a name.

After the reading ended, I was giving feedback and I told her:

‘My friend’s name was Claire.’

Her face dropped.

‘I have only one female friend in spirit too, and her name’s also Claire. I was thinking about her the whole time I was giving you this message – why didn’t I just say her name?’

If you look up the phrase ‘kicking yourself’ in the dictionary, right next to it is a picture of a medium not giving a name that was floating about their awareness, which later turned out to be right. It’s the worst.

Spirit will often use names, relationships, hobbies, places and objects from your own life to get their message across. Again, it’s to do with the well-worn energetic pathways. If you can’t stop picturing your Gran during a reading, try offering her name to your sitter. It may be spirit’s way of trying to get you to say the name. When they come to you, trust the names from your own life.

5. When you get it, give it

If you sit on a name and refuse to give it when you get it, your ability to give names will start to shrivel up. Use it or lose it. When you get a name, even if you think it’s wrong, just say it. What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll get a ‘no’. If you edit and restrict yourself out of fear of getting it wrong, your mediumship will shrink to fit the container of your fear, instead of expanding. If you want to be the kind of medium who gets correct names and delivers them with confidence, you must choose to grow into that reality by saying the names you get, even when you feel unsure.

6. Watch other mediums giving names

This technique has no business working as well as it does. It’s not woo-woo, it’s not spiritual, and it’s so easy you can do it lying down. Binge-watch videos of really good mediums giving names. There are millions of clips on Youtube. My favourites are old clips of Gordon Higginson from the 80s and 90s giving dems in spiritualist churches. It’s so grainy and fuzzy, but he was such a fantastic medium, it’s an inspiring watch. I find, if I do this, names come more easily in the readings I do following a binge. I don’t know how it works, but it does. It’s like a little of his magic makes its way through the screen and into my mind.

7. Keep a journal of all the times you’ve given a name correctly

It’s human nature to hold on to the things that went wrong, which caused us shame or danger, and to forget the things that went well. Things that go well are not threatening so to remember them vividly would take up precious memory space. When it comes to your mediumship, what this means is your successes become miniscule to the point of forgotten, and your failures get blown out of all proportion. One thing you can do to counter-balance this tendency towards negativity, is to write down your wins. Whenever you get a correct name in a reading, write it down in a special ‘book of wins’. Look over your book of wins every once in a while to remind yourself that you can receive names, you have done it, and you will do it again. I bet there are more instances of receiving correct names in there than you remember.

Thanks for reading!

Ps. The Spirit Circle is relaunching on Tuesday 14^th April, and your first session is free.

The Spirit Circle is a weekly mastermind for mediums who want to hone their craft, give practice readings with feedback, and grow spiritually, in a community that is focused both on nurturing you and pushing your development forward.

We will meet each Tuesday on Zoom from 7pm - 9pm BST / GMT (that’s UK time).

Tap the button below to find out more and register for your free taster session.

The Spirit Circle

Everyone has their favourite stopping strategy.

That one excuse that seems so valid, and so convincing, that you abandon your big, scary goal and retreat to the safety of the familiar.

My pet stopping strategy is discouragement.

If I feel discouraged, accompanied by the thought, ‘No one cares if I do this. If I don’t finish this, it wouldn’t matter to anyone,’ I am guaranteed to lose heart, down tools, let the dream fizzle out, and start getting distracted by other (safer) things.

Unless I have someone actively encouraging and supporting me, to whom I am accountable for my actions, I start convincing myself to let go of a much-wanted thing.

I am not a capable ‘finisher’ when I’m going it alone. I am always bested by the melancholic power of discouragement.

I know that now. And I have taken steps to stop stopping.

I no longer embark on anything important without support and accountability. I require someone to lovingly kick my butt and celebrate my wins. Someone who I have to report to. Someone who will not let me wriggle and squirm out of my painful and difficult desires.

Someone who genuinely cares that I succeed.

I don’t always succeed, but at least I have the self-awareness that I’m vulnerable to stopping.

Many people go through their lives with a dream in their heart, but when the going gets tough, they believe their stopping strategy, down tools, and set themself back to square one. And so it repeats for the rest of their lives.

Don’t do that. If you can at all help it.

Public speaking is one of the most terrifying and divisive dreams going.

The same person both desperately wants to take to the stage, and desperately wants to NVER EVER SPEAK IN PUBLIC.

To get up on a stage, of any kind, and speak, often triggers an all out war between your dreams and your stopping strategies.

And there is even more at stake if your preferred form of public speaking is mediumship, because you cannot prepare what you’re going to say.

For most kinds of public speaking, you should plan a speech, write it out, and rehearse it until it sounds natural.

You can’t do that with mental mediumship. You must turn up UNprepared. The best communication with spirit is characterized by spontaneity, and being in-the-moment with the spirit world.

Sometimes, you will have to get up on stage, in front of a hundred people, and you will not know what is about to come out of your mouth until you open it to speak.

If the very thought of that is making you ill, even though you desperately want to do platform mediumship, then congratulations, you have just met your stopping strategy.

Our stopping strategies usually speak to our childhood wounds and vulnerabilities. It can be difficult to identify them, to acknowledge them, and to change them.

My advice is not to battle against your stopping strategy, but to acknowledge it with kindness. It is, after all, just trying to keep you safe.

Here are 5 common stopping strategies. You may find yours among them.

1. Playing Small

Hiding. Staying inside your comfort zone. Reading for the same 4 people every week. Calling yourself a fledgling after 15 years sitting in circle. Hiding may feel safe, and maybe in the past you had to hide from something (or someone) scary. But these times are not those times, and, as they say, ‘the timid are caught as often as the bold.’

Put yourself forward for opportunities outside your comfort zone. Work with unfamiliar sitters. Get out from behind your computer. Make a ritual of doing one brave thing per week with your mediumship.

2. Believing You’re Not Special

If, somewhere in the past, you got the message that you shouldn’t outshine your sibling, or you were accused of thinking you’re better than family for being successful or good at something, you may have learned to hide your light under a bushel. Getting up on stage and speaking symbolizes that you have something to say. Past conditioning may make you deeply resistant to doing this.

The tallest poppy may sometimes get cut down first, but the tallest poppy is also the first to be admired.

Mediumship is an interesting and unique ability. You are allowed to shine, and you’re safe to be the tallest poppy.

3. Procrastinating

No, the laundry is not more important than your platform mediumship.

No, you don’t have to clean the whole house before you can sit in meditation.

No, you don’t need one more certificate or qualification before you can stand up to speak.

Procrastination is fear of failure, and fear of not being good enough.

But time is short. Every moment you delay getting up on platform, moments for connection and healing are lost. You are ready, you are good enough. Confidence will come from the doing. You don’t get to be confident first. You have to do it scared.

4. ‘I don’t have time.’

I have an almost 3 year old, and a 14 month old. I am up to my neck in nappies, tantrums and guilt (and love, of course!). There are a great many things I simply do not have time for. I totally get that your life is busy too.

However, only you are able to discern if you truly don’t have time, or if this is an excuse. Were you criticized for your priorities in the past? Do you worry about being selfish? Were you taught that your value is in how much you sacrifice for others?

If so, time poverty may be your stopping strategy. What you’re really saying is, ‘I feel bad spending time on myself, doing something that’s important to me.’

Can you find just one hour per week to work on your platform mediumship? One hour may seem like not much. But it’s a world away from zero.

5. Failing to Follow Up and Follow Through

Do you avoid responding to opportunities that drop into your DMs? I bet if you went through your emails, your first (or next) speaking opportunity would be in there.

If you avoid opportunities, you may have the ‘lone wolf’ wound.

This wound settles into your heart when someone close has disappointed you. And now, you’re scared to trust and collaborate with others.

You can be discerning when it comes to opportunities. No situation requires that you be all-in or completely out. You can take the next available step until either trust or doubt reveals itself.

Try saying ‘yes’ to a small opportunity to demonstrate your mediumship. Something free, something with 10 guests, something mutually beneficial. Take small steps to build up that trust muscle.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading about ‘stopping strategies’. And I hope, the next time you pump the brakes while going for something important, you’ll think, ‘wait, why am I stopping?’ And you’ll be able to recognize that your stopping strategy has taken the reins and you maybe need some support and self-compassion to get back on track. Slow down. Snail’s pace is allowed. Snail’s pace is preferrable to stopping altogether.

Ps. If you are an intermediate - professional level medium, and you want to begin or improve platform mediumship or audience readings, then I invite you to enroll in my new course, Platform Perfection. For 9 weeks, I’ll teach you everything you need to know to present your mediumship to audiences. Culminating in a live audience dem at our graduation party. Tap the button below to find out more and sign up.

Platform Perfection - Find Out More

A spiritual crisis happens when your relationship with God, Spirit, the Universe is ruptured.

This can be caused by:

• Feeling that God has abandoned you in your time of need.

• Discovering that your guru is a particularly bad human with particularly good ideas, and struggling to reconcile this.

• Experiencing shocking hurt and monumental difficulties, even though you were ‘good’ and ‘positive’.

• Being betrayed by someone you loved, trusted and respected.

• The death of someone you can’t live without.

• Experiencing or witnessing any other kind of sudden or overwhelming suffering.

At some point in your life, your spiritual beliefs may struggle to survive the reality of your lived experience. Fundamentally, you may believe that if you are good, and reverent to God, only good things will happen. Then, when the normal, terrible events of life arise, your ideological system crumbles. You feel angry, confused, hurt and betrayed. Goodness did not save you from heartbreak. God has broken a promise to love and protect you. You tear up your sacred books, turn your back on your community, and withdraw from your spiritual practices.

Soon, the fire of anger turns to the wetness of sadness. You feel lost, adrift, unmoored. Your signature look becomes a vacant stare as your mind tries desperately to integrate hurts and losses into your belief system.

It goes so deep that you become genuinely afraid you’ll feel this way forever. On top of the original loss, you limp forward in life without your creator.

You are in the dark, it’s true, but the dark is earth. And you are a seed. This dark place is where true, mature, integrated spirituality begins. You may feel at your lowest, buried in the earth, but at this moment, you are the wisest you have ever been.

Right now, all you can see is dirt. But at least your eyes are wide open.

You have not truly lost God. It only feels that way right now. What has been lost is childish naivete - an immature view of God. The earth of your soul has been scorched, for sure. But move through the devastation patiently and you will find that your soul is clear and fertile, ready for new understanding to grow.

When you survive the loss of something sacred, you will come to understand the spiritual value of what is near to you. What is tangible to you. And what is essential to you. Hugging your child becomes a sacred act. Washing dishes, a devotional practice. Eating an apple: a miracle to meditate upon.

Relief from monumental loss waits in simplicity and immediacy.

Clean and tidy your home. Bringing order to what is tangible soothes wounds that are ethereal.

Go where the love is. Spend time around children and animals. Rest among easy company. Catch up with an old friend.

Talk and write about it. When you give expression to your hurt, it prevents rumination.

Get out in nature every day. Put your bare feet on the ground. Let the boughs and branches of trees scrape the sadness from your aura. Let the sea lap at your wounds.

Be satisfied with this moment only. If you are grieving, it will be hard for you to see next week, next month, or next year, never mind attending to it. A spiritual crisis shortens your vision. Instead of over-extending yourself, do the best you can with this present moment, and trust that it’s enough to take care of the future.

Nurture yourself. Treat your body as sacred and important. Feed yourself well, drink enough water, and pay attention to your emotions. Eat things that grow from the ground.

And one day, when you least expect it, you’ll find the path out of the dark forest. Your face, heart and mind will point heavenward spontaneously. And you’ll find God once more, in the leaves, stars, and birdsong.

Ps. I hope you enjoyed this little piece about surviving a spiritual crisis. I experienced some difficulties in my life lately that took me by surprise. They made me question my mediumship, my faith in spirit, and my point of view on the world. Our identities are made up of islands of what we hold dear. All it takes is for a few of those islands to be obliterated at once, for your sense of self to weaken. It just goes to show how much of ourselves actually exists not in our bodies, but in the people, places and things we care about.

Pps. Paid subscriptions to The Art & Science of Mediumship are available now. For those of you who were paid subscribers before I went on maternity leave, billing will resume on your usual date. If you no longer wish to have a paid subscription, you can cancel before your next billing date and you won’t be charged.

Subscriptions are priced at 7GBP per month, or 70GBP per year. If my words and ideas are worth the price of one coffee per month to you, please consider subscribing. It helps me pay a babysitter so I can sit down and write for you! Thank you. x

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Have you ever been struck by a scintillating idea that set your heart racing…

Only to pursue it and find every step filled with hellish, agonizing resistance?

How do you know when to abandon an idea, versus, ‘powering through’ and making it yours by sheer force and agency?

Personally, I hate powering through.

In fact, now that I have a young family, I physically cannot do anything that requires brute force or superhuman willpower.

At the risk of sounding woowoo - it’s gotta be in flow.

Easy is all I have to give right now.

Recently, I announced to you the relaunch of my Spirit Sessions group reading events as a monthly membership.

But as soon as I decided to do it, I started having to ‘power through’.

I am still getting used to what I can accomplish now that I have two young kids. And it’s SO. MUCH. LESS than the 37 years prior.

So, sorry folks, but Spirit Sessions is postponed for the foreseeable future. At least until the wee man is sleeping through the night.

This is my life right now, but it’s also a message for you. I’m guided to share this for a reason, I can feel it.

Stop over-extending yourself. Cancel some stuff. Powering through is making you weepy and sleepy. It’s time to say no. Get good at back-pedalling until you learn your REAL limits, the limits within which you can be both rested and fulfilled. People who care about you won’t mind if you politely decline. Tell the truth about why you have to cancel. The truth (almost!) always lands well.

This is the time for you to feel much more accomplished by accomplishing so much less.

Ps. In place of Spirit Sessions, I’ve decided to open my diary for a very limited number of 1:1 sessions. I still want to serve you, and I still want to work with spirit, I just have to listen to my soul and start back more slowly, and more intimately. :)

If you would like a 1:1 reading with me, you can book at the link below.

www.calendly.com/laurenrobertson

Let’s contact your loved ones in spirit, discuss your life, and make a gentle plan for the road ahead. 1:1 Spirit Sessions are priced at 100 GBP and last 60 mins.

Think about the most important relationships in your life.

How much control do you have over them?

At best, it’s probably around 33.33333%.

The other person has the same.

And we have to portion out another third, roughly, to rogue influences - mothers-in-law, and conspiracy theorists and such.

Think of your relationship with a passed loved one via a medium in the same way.

You’re not fully in control of how the reading pans out. Neither is the medium, nor your communicator.

But… you CAN take care of your third. And in so doing, you give yourself the best chance of success for receiving an epic mediumship reading. A miraculous one. One that has the power to change your life by alleviating the agony of loss and the fear of death.

Here are three actionable steps YOU can take to increase the likelihood that your next reading will be jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring and soul-healing.

1. Clean up your own energy.

Here are some energy states that need cleaned up.

Raw desperation

Crushing expectations

Angry demands

Denial

Bitter cynicism

Controlling

Skeptical adversarialism

Mediumship is a dance. Imagine trying to dance with a new partner while brimming with any of these energies? It makes mediumship difficult in exactly the same way it makes dancing difficult.

Now, I know you may come to a medium feeling various shades of awful. That’s understandable. Loss is painful. But try to clean up anything based in rage or contempt. These emotions block you off from connection. Journalling about your feelings may help. Or you may need more time.

2. In the lead up to your reading, practice connection and curiosity.

Spend time with others instead of isolating. Let your gaze fall gently and with wonder on the world around you. These states are good rehearsals for the state of spirit. Align with connection and curiosity often, and it will be easier for the medium to align with you.

3. Listen to tonal music.

I recommend binaural beats or a singing bowl sound bath. There are many talented sound artists on YouTube. The relationship between music and mediumship is not well understood. But it’s there, and it’s POWERFUL. Try it and see for yourself. Listen before seeing a medium. Gently make your request for contact within your own mind. And visualise yourself coming into alignment with the medium and your loved ones. Harmonic alignment is the key.

Please tell me in a comment - which one of these tips speaks to you the most?

Ps. I'm delighted to let you know that Spirit Sessions is now open and accepting members!

Our first session takes place on Tuesday 26th August 2025, from 7pm - 8.30pm UK time.

...and subsequent Tuesdays thereafter.

Spirit Sessions is for you if:

- You'd like to connect with spirit and participate in a group mediumship demonstration, with a chance of being the receiver of a message from a passed loved one.

- You want to supercharge your life with powerful guidance and support in the form of intuitive coaching. Ask about health, wealth, relationships, career, spirituality, purpose and big life changes.

- You'd thrive within a consistent community of likeminded friends and spiritual seekers, giving you a safe space to check-in and be held each week.

Prior to our first session...

Sign up now and you will receive:

A special introductory membership rate.

A guided meditation that will show you how to meet your loved ones in spirit.

Weekly video tutorials (starting next week) on how to prepare for an epic mediumship reading, and how to get your breakthrough with coaching.

Visit the link below to find out more.

spirit-school7.teachable.com/p/spirit-sessions-online

The wait for a message, or even a sign, can be excruciating.

When there is deep pain, and even deeper love, it’s difficult to understand why this intensity doesn’t translate to speed and intensity of communication from a passed loved one.

If you have lost, say, a child, it seems that your love would be most pure, your need greatest, and your heart most deserving.

You could imagine angels ushering your child to the front of the queue. Of course he or she should be allowed to go first!

It can be confusing and upsetting, therefore, when clear communication from cherished loved ones is not forthcoming.

You may begin to question:

Was our love not strong enough?

Are they not ok in spirit?

Am I doing something wrong?

And deep within yourself, you may worry:

If I never get a message or a sign, I’ll never feel better.

This is a stasis of torment.

It’s important that your recovery from loss doesn’t hang solely on communication from spirit.

You have to find a way to live and love again even if you never get a message (because life is worth living and love is worth doing).

Please be assured that the strength and frequency with which a person comes through from spirit (or not!), has little to do with the bond of love you shared.

As with life, spirit people have differing levels of competency, desire, intentions and accessibility.

And much of the time, it’s about timing. The wrong medium, the wrong vibe, the wrong time…nothing happens.

But when it’s the right medium, the right spirit person, the right recipient, and the right time, magic can happen.

Best to be nonchalantly open to this.

Try to live. Try to love again. And try to trust that the timing and the alignment will sort itself out. Forces greater than us will have a hand in bringing forward the communication you seek.

With Care for your Pain,

Lauren

Ps. If you would like to join me for an online mediumship event, you can note your interest here. You will be notified first when registration for Spirit Sessions Online opens.

Motherhood has changed me.

It has unlocked dormant states. I am as water: Rainstorm, river, steam and ice. Tsunami, drought, salty, soothing.

I left you as a modest river, running a well-carved path, and I return to you a vast ocean.

I am an ocean of love and devotion for my little girl, salted by the tears of overwhelm and uncertainty.

Giving birth to my daughter is the closest I’ve ever come to dying. And loving her is the closest I’ve ever come to really living.

I called upon my spirituality - my relationship with my higher self and my creator - many, many times over the last year. My prayers were mostly pleas for strength and sanity during 2am feeds.

I gave my all to my baby.

Now she is a little older, and daddy is the fun adventure buddy, the ‘all’ I’m required to give has eased off a bit. I have some time and energy to return to my spiritual work in service to others beyond my family.

To that end, I have a few announcements to make.

Free Substack for the Foreseeable

Previously, there was a paid version of The Art & Science of Mediumship, which many subscribers chose to invest in (for which I am grateful!). I have decided not to reintroduce paid subscriptions at this time, as I don’t feel able to keep up with the required writing schedule. Instead, I will write pieces for you, for free, as and when I am able. Low commitment on both sides.

Live Events

I finally launched Spirit Sessions, a mediumship and spiritual coaching event, after talking about it for FIVE YEARS. Spirit Sessions is a public demonstration of mediumship in which I reconnect you with loved ones, bringing forward evidence of survival and messages of love. And I invite you to bring your burning questions to receive some spiritual coaching. Spirit Sessions currently takes place in Glasgow and Edinburgh (Scotland) each month. If you’d like to attend, you can get tickets for April / May 2024 at the following:

Spirit Sessions Edinburgh

Spirit Sessions Glasgow

1:1 Mediumship Coaching

If you’re looking to transcend your current capabilities in your mediumship, I’m offering a small number of half-day (3 hours) and full-day (8 hours) coaching intensives. Working together 1:1, I can guide and support you to achieve any of the following:

• How to receive names, dates, and other specific details more consistently in your mediumship.

• How to overcome fear, hesitation and self-doubt about your mediumship to allow the message to flow.

• How to deepen your bond with spirit, and get to the heart of the communicator’s message.

• How to get started giving professional-level 1:1 readings.

• How to get started with platform mediumship.

• How to create a constant flow of happy clients / sitters.

• How to launch and fill your mediumship events.

• Working through specific blocks such as fear of failure, fear of ridicule, a bad reading experience, hearing a ‘no’, getting back into mediumship after a long break…to build your confidence back up and get you back on the right track.

Your coaching session will take place on Zoom, and you’ll receive a video recording of your session. You will also receive a deep-dive coaching welcome packet, and a complimentary follow-up coaching session (1 hour).

If you’re interested in receiving 1:1 mediumship coaching with me, please tap the link below and fill in the application form.

Apply for Mediumship Coaching

1:1 Spiritual Life Coaching

If you’re feeling stuck, unsure which direction to go, or you’d like to restore feelings of purposefulness, wonder, and awe in your life, then I invite you to join me for spiritual life coaching.

Spiritual life coaching is based on two premises.

1. On a soul level, you know what you want, you know what is best for you, and you know what you need to do to make a positive change. But this self-knowledge is hidden, usually by fear.

2. A powerful question can open your mind and reveal to you the truth of what you want, and what you ought to do to get it.

Using powerful questions, I can help you move from stuckness to purposefulness in almost any area of your life. Previous clients have come to me with questions such as:

• I had a difficult childhood and feel stuck with resentments about the past and negative thoughts about myself. How can I move on and heal?

• I’m working a job that pays the bills but it’s not my passion or purpose. How do I know if / when to take the leap into something more meaningful?

• Am I in the right relationship?

• Should I have a baby?

• I lost a loved one a few years ago, and I’m not recovering well from grief. How do I recover myself and find joy in life again while remembering them?

• I want to live more intuitively but I feel blocked and unsure of myself. How do I start recognizing my intuition and trusting myself?

• I want to write a book / start a business / create art but I’m struggling to get started. What’s stopping me?

…if you have a burning question that’s keeping you awake at night, I can help you unpack it and reach something close to the answer, with a listening ear and spirit-inspired questions and guidance.

Your spiritual life coaching session takes place on Zoom and also includes a video recording of your session.

You can also choose to receive a psychic and mediumship reading as part of your session, if you wish.

You will also receive a complimentary follow-up session (1 hour).

If this feels like the right opportunity for you, please fill in the application form here.

Apply for Spiritual Life Coaching

My Spirit Session events and coaching spots are limited opportunities because…

I’m expecting again!

This time we’re having a baby boy, due in August.

All being well, that will be our wee family complete.

I will probably go on maternity leave for a year again, so the opportunities to work with me are open until July (or I’m too pregnant to move!).

This will be my only promotional Substack post about these opportunities.

Thanks for reading. I’m glad to be back, and I look forward to writing for you again soon.

This was due to a broken link and has now been rectified.

Take 50% off my mediumship courses using discount code MATLEAVE at checkout.

The Fundamentals is for beginners to intermediate mediums who want to explore their innate capacity for spirit communication and give jaw-dropping, professional quality readings from day one.

Miraculous Mediumship is a deep-dive coaching program for mediums who are ready to get out of their own way and release fear and self-doubt around their mediumship, so you can attract an abundance of happy sitters, give world-class messages consistently, and feel confident, joyful and secure in your bond with spirit.

I am going on maternity leave (technically I am on leave now) for up to a year, so these courses are at-home self-study. Hopefully they will keep you busy and help boost your mediumship until my return!

Find out more about the courses here:

Visit Spirit School

Remember to use code MATLEAVE at checkout for 50% off.

Offer ends 28/12/2022.

A very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to you and yours!

Love from Lauren and Baby Peanut x

My belly is huge.

My baby now weighs 4lbs 11oz and is 42cm long. I can no longer complete a shopping trip on my own, and a full night’s sleep is but a long ago memory.

The womb party is from 11pm-4am, 7 nights a week. And it’s a party to which I’m ALWAYS invited.

I’m reaching the end of my pregnancy now, with my wee girl due on 25th January 2023 (Burns night - an auspicious date for a Scottish baby!) and while I have had an easier and more fun pregnancy than a lot of women, I am now at the stage where everything is about eight times more difficult than my pre-pregnancy capabilities.

I was hopeful that I’d be able to continue The Art & Science of Mediumship throughout my pregnancy and into motherhood, but the pace of producing two articles per week is proving too much at the moment.

Each article involves research, writing, editing, social media promotion, and engaging with you (which I love, don’t get me wrong!). Plus there are the many podcast appearances, guest posts and events I attend to attract new subscribers.

I could cut back, I suppose, but I am the kind of person who likes to do things well, and fully, or not at all.

So I’ve made the decision to press pause on The Art & Science of Mediumship while I have my baby and settle in to the commitments of motherhood. I don’t yet know when I’ll be back. It may be three months, it may be a year. But I will be back. I love writing for you!

For those of you who have paid me for my writing - thank you. Your subscriptions have been paused and you will not receive any further charges from me until I announce my return and resume writing.

You will retain access to the extra articles and interviews you paid for.

All subscribers will be able to continue to read The Art & Science of Mediumship, it’s just that I won’t be producing any new work for a while, and I won’t be around as much to answer comments and questions.

If you share my articles, or send readers my way - thank you! New readers will still be able to register as free subscribers in anticipation of my return, and they will gain access to the archive.

Just this week, Dr Helané Wahbeh et. al. published a study - the first of its kind - exploring the question of whether mediums can communicate with prenatal consciousness in a similar way that they can communicate with the deceased. They presented a thought-provoking and thorough study that suggests some possible bonds of consciousness between unborn babies, their mothers, their fathers, and mediums.

The study reached a few conclusions:

• Mediums got quite a lot of information wrong, but what they got right was spookily accurate and emotionally significant.

• Mediums did much better connecting with the unborn baby when they were allowed to freestyle rather than answering structured questions.

• There was an unexpectedly strong bond between the babies in the womb and their fathers, with the baby’s consciousnesses often visiting dad in dreams, and the medium being able to pick up detailed facts about dad from the baby.

You can read the study here, and if you found it beneficial, please consider donating to the Institute of Noetic Sciences here.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading The Art & Science of Mediumship. It has been a pleasure to write for you. This isn’t goodbye forever, just cheerio for now.

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I’ll be seeing you on the flipside of motherhood with baby Peanut present with us in this school we call ‘life’.

‘When a child is born, so is a parent.’

All My Love,

Lauren x

Mediumship, at its core, is the practice of attempting to prove the existence of life after bodily death.

The kind that I practise is called mental mediumship , meaning that all communication comes through me, as the person in spirit impresses true information about themselves into my mind. I then convey this information to a living recipient - usually a loved one who knew the communicator well, and he or she confirms whether the information is accurate.  If enough of the information given is accurate, and they are confident beyond reasonable doubt that it was not obtained from elsewhere, then this proves the existence of another intelligence. This is the continued intelligence of the person in spirit.

Now, in the age of technology, social media acts as a pretty good metaphor for the spirit world, mediumship, and spirit communication. Human beings have become experts at building disembodied intelligence, information and interaction. Think of social media: If your computer was taken offline, switched off, or even destroyed, all of your shared memories - videos, photos, posts, comments, likes and dislikes, and network of friends would remain. And this ‘imprint’ of you would be accessible from other computers, for a very long time. To me, this is a great analogy for what happens when we die, and how mediums can access some aspects of our personalities and identities. Our bodies go offline, but many of the images, experiences and ideas that were important to us, and which we identified with, remain.

Mediums seem to be able to ‘log in’ and, with varying intensities of resolution, can view the personalities of people who are no longer physically with us, reporting what they find in ways that comfort the living.

What do you think of this theory? How do you think mediumship works?

The difference between a coincidence, and a synchronicity, is the way it makes you feel.

People who imagine themselves to be logical and rational will say that all synchronicities are merely coincidences, and will deny that there’s anything more to them.

But think back to when you experienced a coincidence in your own life, versus a time when you experien…

Read more

Sometimes we suppress our grief.

Perhaps we were brought up to believe it’s weak to cry or express our emotions, and we were punished for doing so. Sometimes it’s because we believe that if we start the grieving process, we’ll never stop, our lives will be lost, and we’ll never feel ok again, so we just don’t go there. And sometimes, our subconscious minds are not ready to let the person or animal go. By suppressing our grief, we suppress the reality of transition, and our hearts are protected. Confronting the loss is postponed to another day.

Not experiencing the pain of grief can seem like a good thing in the short term, but unexpressed grief can lead to all kinds of pain and problems later on. You would not - and could not - stifle the pain of a broken arm, and you certainly wouldn’t leave it untreated. Why do so with a broken heart?

It’s important to face your grief in a safe and supported way. Journaling, speaking with a trusted friend, or seeking counselling may work well for you. Trust your instincts.

What has helped you move through grief in the past?