Everyone can be psychic. I believe some people are more predisposed to it, much like a professional athlete is predisposed to athleticism, but psychic abilities are available to all of us. Becoming a professional psychic is just a matter of how badly you want to develop and explore your psychic nature.

While I believe meditation is of utmost importance in psychic development, *reading* is a close second. Most psychic people I’ve encountered are well-read, and have made the commitment to being a student for life. 

Here are five books that have helped me develop my psychic abilities:

1. Psychic Witch by Mat Auryn

This book is a fantastic, comprehensive beginner’s guide. Auryn believes that psychics, those who perceive and read energy, and witches, those who manipulate energy, have a lot to learn from one another. This book is full of simple explanations on meditation, theory, brain waves, shielding, protection, spell casting, and more. The reason this book is such a big hit is that it lacks the gatekeeping vibes you might find in so many other occult books. 

While I identify as more of a psychic than a witch, I really loved reading about the witchcraft theories, and I believe it’s influenced my psychic development for the better.  

2. Psychic Tarot by Craig Junjulas

This thin, little book is quite popular (and also a bit expensive) because it’s one of the most comprehensive companion books to the beloved Aquarian Tarot. Junjulas concisely explains how tarot cards can unlock psychic power and capabilities within the reader (something I did not understand was happening to me when it was happening to me). He explains how to develop clairs, read cards, feel chakras, connect with clients, and push beyond your comfort zone. I only wish I’d found this little gem sooner.

3. Healing Pluto Problems by Donna Cunningham

This book isn’t directly about psychic development; however,  I include it here because *healing your psychological wounds is a prerequisite for any professional psychic*. For all my fellow Plutonians out there (i.e. folks who have Pluto in the first house of their natal astrology chart) — this book has great exercises and wisdom regarding healing. Cunningham is an astrologer and a psychologist who allows her two fields of study to inform one another. Every time I pick up this  book, I find something new that I missed the first time around. It’s a special book.

4.  Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune

At the beginning of my psychic development, I was scared and alone. I was not sleeping much at night and I was afraid spirits were going to contact me in the middle of the night. I bought this book in order to understand the nature of ‘psychic attacks’ and self-protection. While I do not practice my psychic mediumship in fear anymore (thanks to meeting mediums IRL), this book was nevertheless informative about the perception of dark energy within the psychic world. The author takes the topic very seriously and recounts colorful stories from being the victim of a psychic attack. This book is controversial for a lot of reasons, but one seems to be that it doesn’t read like a guide or reference book; it reads more like an anthology of short stories.

5. The Mediums’ Book “by” Alan Kardec

This book is a super dense read, and should probably be reserved for people who are working toward mediumship (which is separate from psychic reading). This book was dictated to automatic writing mediums by spirits from the spirit world and collected by Alan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism. Before I found a mentor or a development circle, I read this book to better understand how spirits like to be addressed and spoken to in the spirit world. It’s a fascinating read that gives the practice of mediumship a high moral tone. Much of my foundations in mediumship are informed by this book. Kardec also has the Spirts’ Book, which provides the same re: Spirits (I have not read it).

The most magical thing about reading occult books is that the seem to morph and shift over time. I can return to these books and pick up on something new every single time. “Was that in here before?” “How did I miss that?” Many have reported the same of the Book of Thoth and others.

Tarot card reading came into my life at precisely the right time: when I decided to get sober.

For highly-sensitive persons, the first year of sobriety comes with unforeseen growing pains.  I did not feel comfortable at in-person support groups (though this method works for millions of people), and I did not have many people in my life who were sober or wanted to be sober. 

Enter: Tarot cards! 

The Thoth deck, in particular, asks the querent to look within themselves and shine light into the darkness. While I had a therapist, a supportive partner, and loads of artistic coping mechanisms, tarot was able to offer me something nothing else could: a mirror for my soul.

In this video, I give three reasons why the tarot was so effective for me in early sobriety and why I continue to use it to maintain my sobriety today.

1. The daily check-in with our emotions

2. The probing nature of the Thoth tarot deck

3. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop – the tarot gives us something to learn, use, feel, and be.

The role of a healer is to mitigate the world’s suffering.

Many healers — if not all — come into the profession as a result of trauma and a willingness to heal from it. I don’t think you can wake up one day and say, “I want to be a healer” if you haven’t survived your trauma and begun to heal it. And I don’t think you should be a healer if you can’t understand the depth of someone’s pain beyond your own.

The gift (or, some may argue, the curse) to deeply feel others’ pain is what I think it means to be empathetic. To detect the same pain in a stranger, and recognize their story without being prompted, is what it means to be psychic. In recognizing someone’s struggle, a healer finds themselves wanting to be of assistance . In my case, it’s the notion, “I felt so bad when x happened, and I never want anyone who experiences x to feel as bad/lost/misunderstood as I did,” that makes me want to keep meeting with people. 

It’s the combination of surviving trauma, actively healing from it, detecting similar trauma in others, and making space for grief that makes a good healer. Without the lived experience (trauma, recovery), without the genuine empathy (yes, empathy can be faked), I don’t think people can be of much psychic help to one another.

Being a healer is the shiniest, biggest reward we get for being highly-sensitive people in a world that doesn’t make space for big feelings. And as healers, we are tasked with making space not only for ourselves, but for others.