Signs from the Other Side. Bill Philipps

It was my job to try to separate their energies, like untangling a bunch of cords. That is why in a group reading it would likely take me a while to figure out whom the spirit was trying to reach, and why I counted on the clients to help me determine that.

      Something else I learned was that a message from a spirit did not always immediately make sense to a client, but it would with time. For example, if we had determined that a client’s grandmother was coming through to us and she talked about some letters in a shoebox, the client might have had no idea what that meant: “Letters? I don’t know anything about any letters.” But that didn’t mean the letters didn’t exist and wouldn’t materialize at some point in the future. The client and I both needed to trust what the spirit was saying, no matter how little sense it made at the moment. In time, if the client had an open mind and open heart, the message would become clear.

      I continued with the readings, voice lessons, and school for the next couple of years, until January 2005 when I made a major decision: I was going to attend the prestigious San Francisco Conservatory of Music to train as an opera singer. A few months earlier, I had been among roughly a hundred candidates who auditioned for just one open spot at the school — and I got it. The faculty identified me as a “young dramatic tenor” with a very rare “young Wagnerian” voice. They viewed me as someone who had tremendous potential to succeed in the world of opera. As successful as I had been doing readings, this was an opportunity I could not pass up.

      But guess where the spirit world goes when you decide to move to San Francisco? With you to San Francisco. The spirits couldn’t have cared less about what my career plans were or that I was moving. I had been their channel, they trusted me, and they weren’t going to let that go.

      As it turned out, my time at the Conservatory sharpened my skills as a psychic medium in a couple of ways. One way was by singing onstage, which taught me how to handle pressure in front of audiences and to trust my talents. The other way was through the vibration of the music, which was very similar to the feeling I had when tuning in to spirits. Music can raise your energy and cut through any negativity you are experiencing. For me, music connected my energy with my soul and produced an exhilaration that helped me connect with the spirit world.

      I cut back on readings when I got to the Conservatory, doing them mainly by phone for people back home or face-to-face when I returned to Southern California for breaks. The only person I initially did them for on campus was a teacher whom I had told about my gift. A spiritual person herself, she was so excited to hear about my ability that she wanted to help me develop it while I was in school, and I agreed to let her. She taught me how to “sing spiritually” by correlating the way I sang with the energy inside me, and she also had me give readings to specific opera teachers at the school and at other colleges who she knew would be open to my gift — and it worked.

      In no time, I was doing readings for some of the top opera people in the world. They were blown away by my abilities, and I was soon doing multiple readings a week. It was exhausting, but I felt a real responsibility to keep doing it. As strange as it may sound, abandoning those souls that had crossed over would have been an ethical failing, in my opinion.

      After graduating in the spring of 2008 at the age of twenty-three, with an opera degree in hand, I decided to set it aside to pursue a full-time career as a medium. I still had a passion for singing but not at the same level as I did for creating a connection between the dead and the living. My singing might affect someone’s life for the moment, but my readings were changing lives forever.

      I built a website by the fall and sent an email about my decision to all my family members and closest friends. Well, all except my grandma and dad. I needed to tell them in person, because I expected they were not going to be happy about my decision. Unfortunately, I was correct. My dad called me the devil and said I was a fool for not pursuing opera. Considering the sordid life he had led, I had hoped for a little more understanding from him, but there was none. My grandma at least listened to me, but she wasn’t pleased either. She was a devout Christian who believed that mediumship was not something to be messed with.

      The irony, from my perspective, was that she had raised me as a Christian, to believe in and emulate Jesus, a healer and an instrument of love and peace. Providing emotional and spiritual healing for people by bringing peace and love into their lives through a connection with their deceased loved ones was my goal. How could I follow Christ any better?

      What Grandma had taught me as a child about Christianity was the basis for what I was doing. I understood that the Bible said to stay away from mediums, but I couldn’t deny this unique gift — and yes, I believed it was a gift, because how could something that was bringing such joy to people be anything else? I wasn’t dabbling in Ouija boards or communicating with evil spirits. I knew I was doing the right thing, and I was doing it with nothing but pure and good intentions. I felt a responsibility to use this gift to bring happiness to as many people as possible, no matter who disagreed with me, even the woman I loved the most.

       3 Making the Connection

      Now that you know the gist of my background, I want to provide you with one last chapter of information condensed from Expect the Unexpected that will help you understand how I do what I do, which in turn will help you tap into your intuition more frequently and effectively.

      First, you should know the difference between a psychic and a medium:

       • All mediums are psychics because, like everyone else, they are born with an intuitive sense.

       • A medium has to be a psychic because they use their psychic abilities to connect with and channel the spirits.

       • Not all psychics are mediums because they do not necessarily communicate with the dead.

      I have both abilities. As a psychic, I am “tuning in” to the energy of the spiritual side; it’s like trying to find a radio station through static. Once that connection has been established, as a medium, I am “channeling” that spiritual energy and letting the information I receive flow through my psychic senses, which I can then share with others.

      The reason we all have psychic abilities on some level is because we are all spiritual beings before we are human beings. The body is a shell that will eventually shut down once the heart stops pumping. The spirit, however, is the soul in each of us that lives forever. It is when we are alive in that shell on earth and we align our physical side with our spiritual side — that process of “tuning in” — that we can tap into our intuition.

      I want to be clear that after reading this book you will not have the abilities of a medium, and even though you should be able to better tap into your intuition, your psychic abilities will not be at the level of mine unless you have been given this same gift. But they should be at a level higher than you have ever experienced.

      Also, don’t fall into the trap of believing the common misconception that anyone who is a psychic should know everything. That is absolutely not true. Psychics are not God, God does not want us to know everything (life wouldn’t be much fun if we did!), and God gave every one of us free will to make decisions — good and bad — that can potentially change the course of our day and someone else’s. The signs we receive from the spirit world are simply meant to be used as guides in our decision making or to bring us comfort during difficult situations.

      While my intuition about something can be so strong that I could almost guarantee it is going to happen, it will never be a 100 percent guarantee, because we are beings who were created to think for ourselves and make our own decisions — again, free will. If I tell you something is going to happen to you, often you can determine whether it really comes to pass or not by the decision you make. So, then, why don’t my psychic abilities allow me to know the decision you were going to make? Because there are more than seven billion people in the world, and I do not have access to their brains. Our psychic abilities can guide us well, but they cannot control our futures.

      When