Inspirational speakers and writers are exhibiting phases of mental mediumship. I had the most unique 5th grade teacher ever. by day she worked and toiled over us students in a class room, settling disagreements and passing out papers. Once I didn’t have a partner and she volunteered to be mine and drew the most accurate portrait of me that I had ever seen. She had talent and then “hidden talent”. On her off time, she was quite the medium. Back then, we didn’t have a name for it. It was almost to say that the term went out of popularity. I didn’t even really know about her spiritual side till I was in my teens when I actively began to sit in metaphysics/healing circles and groups. I was a seeker and wanted to see everything. But many of the groups I attended, there she was, working equally hard at developing her mediumship faculties.
A group experience with her was quite different than a one-on-one experience. In circles she would be that one that would go around and give everyone a message. Again I want to remind 
you that the term medium was not in my vocabulary at the time. I remember asking myself, ” what inspires her to give a message to everyone and where does it come from?” Looking back on those days, I now realize that it might have been a little more helpful to have knowledge of the phrase “psychic medium.” I didn’t start visiting her till I was in my late teens. I have many memories of being comforted, while sitting in her living room. A happy well watered ficus posed near a large window that overlooked rolling hills of olive orchards, stretching out toward the American River Canyon. Sometimes she would share what she was learning about healing and we would take turns working with one another’s auras. I didn’t know much about energy work but she lead by example.
Some days, I would sit with her and talk about what troubled me. And she would listen, only to eventually ask me to formulate a question. The “question” visits were the best…. She would write them down on this yellow legal pad. When she had time, long after you left. She would take her favorite pen and the questions into the “silence.” There she would allow herself to slip back and trance through answers that were quite profound and many times… signed by one party or another. I always left her home with a since of being healed and cared for. My answers would arrive in the mail. She charged me nothing. When I lost my mother, she was the first person I sought counsel from. And I wasn’t let down.
