There is no board you can call about me.

That is worth saying before anything else, because it is the fact that makes every question on this page necessary. With no licensing body standing behind the practice itself, the person doing the checking is you, and most people find that uncomfortable. I think the discomfort is correct.

My name is Elissa Rose. I am a medium myself, working from the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia, so read this knowing whose page you are on. What follows is the set of questions I would want asked if I were the one booking, including the ones that are least flattering for me to answer, and my own answers to them are on this page rather than left for you to guess at.

Estimated reading time: 12 min read

Key Insights

In the United States there is no licensing body for the practice of mediumship itself. The Windbridge Research Center states it plainly: there are no official testing, certification, or registration bodies responsible for the practice, which leaves the checking to you. That is the honest reason a list of questions exists. Nine of them are below with my own position on each, including two where the honest position is that I have not published an answer, so make me say it out loud. The most revealing question is not about accuracy at all; it is whether a medium tells you that you can choose who comes through, because you cannot. A reading general enough to apply to almost anyone is not a slightly weak reading either, it is a recognized technique with a name. And if what you are carrying is heavier than an hour can hold, a reading is not the first thing you need, which is said out loud in the ninth question rather than buried at the bottom.

Why You Have to Ask at All

The Windbridge Research Center, which has studied mediumship under controlled conditions for years, states the position directly: in general, in the United States, no one regulates mediums’ practices. There are no official testing, certification, or registration bodies responsible for regulating the practice of mediumship. Some cities and states require a license to perform psychic readings of any kind, and beyond that, people are largely free to read however they want and charge whatever they want.

Their conclusion is the one I would give you myself. Like hiring any contractor, it is the responsibility of the consumer to check references and understand refund policies.

So you are the gate. Not a licensing body, not a review score, not me. You.

1. Who Taught You, and for How Long?

With no body licensing the practice itself, training is one of the few things that can actually be checked, which is exactly why it is worth asking about first.

A practitioner who trained somewhere can name the somewhere. They can name the teacher, the years, and the tradition. A practitioner who cannot will often reach instead for a story about a childhood gift. The story may be true. It is simply not checkable, and in an unregulated field checkable is the thing you are shopping for.

My own answer: I have more than ten years of formal mediumship training in the New England spiritualist tradition, under six nationally recognized teachers. Rita Berkowitz was my lead teacher for four years. I studied two years at the New Jersey mediumship school run by Bill Coller, a Scottish medium with more than fifty years in the work, alongside its co-director Sharon Siubis. Lori Sheridan, from the Berkowitz lineage, still teaches me now. Jenny Lee and Raymon Grace are the other two. That is separate from more than twenty-five years in intuitive and psychic practice, and I keep the two numbers apart on purpose, because blending them would make the training look longer than it is.

Ask for names and years. Then look the names up.

2. What Happens in the Session, Step by Step?

A practitioner who works to a method can describe that method before you pay for it. One who cannot describe it may still be gifted, but you are being asked to buy an hour you cannot picture.

Mine has three stages and a name. The Sanctuary Process begins with Opening the Veil, which is preparation I do before you ever arrive. Then The Bridge, which is the session itself, where mediumship and clairvoyance and whatever else is needed do their work. Then The Remembering, which is what you take home with you.

You do not have to like my method. What matters is that there is one you can hear before you pay.

3. What Does It Cost, and Is the Price Published?

Ask for the number before the reading, and ask where it is written down.

Price is not a quality signal in this field in either direction, and anyone who tells you the expensive reading is the good one is selling you a frame rather than an hour. What the price does tell you is the shape of the arrangement. A flat fee, posted publicly, for a stated length of time is a different thing from per-minute billing, and a different thing again from a rate quoted only after you have made contact.

A session with me is 144 dollars for sixty minutes. A joint session with Michael is 233 dollars. Those numbers are on the sessions page where anyone can read them, and nothing is sold to you inside the hour.

The reason I say that last part is that the running meter is the oldest problem in this industry. When the clock is the product, the clock gets longer.

4. Can I Choose Who Comes Through?

This is the question I would ask first if I could only ask one.

The answer, and it is the answer on my own sessions page and in my FAQ, is that you cannot choose who comes through. Spirit decides.

I know that is not what anyone hopes to hear. Most people arrive hoping for one particular person, and it is completely understandable to want a guarantee attached to that hope. I cannot give you one, and neither can anyone else. What I can tell you is that a practitioner who promises you a specific person has either misunderstood the work or has decided that your hope is a sales tool.

Notice what the limit does, though. It does not shrink the session. It clears it. If nothing is being promised in advance, then whatever does arrive in the hour can be trusted at full weight.

5. What Will You Ask Me Beforehand, and What Will You Do With It?

Windbridge describes two techniques used by fraudulent practitioners. The first is hot reading, where information about you is obtained in advance, from social media or from someone who chatted with you in the waiting room, and then fed back during the reading as though it came from the deceased.

So the useful question is not whether a medium asks you anything. Some practical information is reasonable, and the Forever Family Foundation’s evaluation program treats this as central: when it assesses a medium, sitter selection is controlled specifically so that the medium has no prior access to the sitter and no information about them.

The question is what gets asked and what happens to the answer. If you are asked for names, dates, relationships, or your social media handles before a reading, you are entitled to ask why. A good answer exists for scheduling and for payment. There is no good answer that involves the details of the person you are hoping to hear from.

6. What Happens if Nothing Comes Through?

Ask it directly, and listen for whether the answer contains the possibility of nothing.

Because it is a possibility. I will not promise you contact, and I would be lying if I did. Some sessions are quiet. That is not a failure of your love for the person or of your openness, and it is not something I can force.

What you are really asking about here is policy, which is the second thing Windbridge tells consumers to check. Find out before you pay what happens to your money and your time if the hour does not go the way either of you hoped. Whether that policy is a refund, a rebooking, or something else matters less than whether the practitioner has one and will say it out loud.

7. Are You Certified, and by Whom?

This one needs care, because the obvious reading of it is wrong.

A medium who holds no certification is not thereby a fraud. There is no governing body, so there is no certificate that everyone legitimate holds. Treating a missing credential as proof of dishonesty would rule out a great many careful practitioners.

What certification does mean, where it exists, is that somebody independent looked. The Forever Family Foundation runs an evaluation process it describes as science-based: a specific medium is examined for whether they can bring forth information without fraudulent or deceptive means, across a variety of sitters the medium knows nothing about, scored by a composite system, conducted over webcam. The foundation says the process is very rigorous and is designed so that only highly developed mediums succeed in attaining certification. It also says clearly that it does not provide training.

So the question is worth asking for what the answer reveals. A practitioner who says no, and says what they do have instead, is being straight with you. A practitioner who claims a certification from a body that does not exist has just answered a different and much more useful question.

8. Will I Be Able to Tell if the Reading Was Vague?

Yes, if you decide in advance how you will check.

The second technique Windbridge describes is cold reading, where a practitioner asks questions and uses your answers, or reads your face, your clothing, your accent, your tears, to steer where the reading goes. And here is the part most people have never been told: a reading containing information so general that it could apply to nearly anyone is itself a form of cold reading. Not a weak reading. A technique.

The reason it works on all of us has a name, and the American Psychological Association’s dictionary of psychology carries an entry for it: the Barnum effect. The short version, in my words rather than theirs, is that a statement broad enough to fit almost anybody still lands as though it were written about you.

The practical test is simple and it costs nothing. Afterward, write down only the things that could not have applied to the person sitting in the next chair. A name. A specific object. Something nobody else in the room would recognize. If that list is long, you had a reading. If it is empty, you had an experience, and you are allowed to call it that.

Keep that wariness, by the way. It is not an obstacle to spiritual guidance. It is the instinct that will lead you to the trustworthy kind.

9. Is a Reading the Right Help for Me Right Now?

I would rather you asked me this than booked without asking.

Mediumship can sit alongside grief and support someone carrying it. It does not treat anything, it does not diagnose anything, and it is not a substitute for care from someone trained to provide it. If you are in the first raw weeks after a death, if you are not sleeping or eating, if the thought of getting through the week feels impossible, then the help you need first is not an hour with me. A grief counselor, a therapist who works with bereavement, your own doctor, or a crisis service if the weight has become dangerous, all of those belong ahead of a session, and none of them is a lesser thing.

I will still be here afterward. That is not me turning you away. It is me telling you the truth about what an hour with a medium can and cannot carry, which is the same thing every other question on this page is for.

The Nine, and What I Say to Each

Everything above in one place, so you can hold it against anyone else you are considering. Two of the rows are not answers but refusals to invent one, which is the honest state of those two questions.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Is it rude to ask a medium these questions before booking?

A: No. With no body licensing the practice itself, asking is the only quality control that exists, and a practitioner who treats reasonable questions as an insult has given you useful information at no cost. I would rather answer nine questions than have someone sit down with me holding doubts they felt they could not raise. The questions are not an accusation. They are how you arrive able to trust the hour.

Q: What is the difference between a psychic reading and a mediumship reading?

A: A mediumship reading is an attempt at contact with someone who has died. A psychic or intuitive reading is about you, your present circumstances, and what is moving around a decision or a situation. They are different pieces of work even when the same practitioner offers both, and they are worth asking about separately, because the questions above apply slightly differently to each.

Q: Should I be worried if a medium is not certified by anyone?

A: Not on its own. Because no body regulates mediumship in the United States, there is no credential every legitimate practitioner holds, and a missing certificate proves nothing either way. What should concern you is a claimed certification you cannot find, or a refusal to say what training sits behind the practice. The absence of a credential is neutral. The absence of a checkable answer is not.

Q: Can a medium guarantee that a specific person will come through?

A: No, and that is the clearest line in this whole article. Nobody can promise you a particular person. If you are offered that guarantee, you are being sold your own hope. What an honest practitioner can tell you is how they work, what they will and will not claim, and what happens if the session is quiet.

Citations

• Windbridge Research Center, Are all mediums frauds?. The source for the regulation position, for the hot reading and cold reading definitions, and for the point that a reading general enough to apply to nearly anyone is itself a form of cold reading. https://www.windbridge.org/are-all-mediums-frauds/
• Windbridge Research Center, What are mediums and how do scientists study them?. Background on how mediumship is studied under controlled conditions. https://www.windbridge.org/what-is-a-medium/
• Forever Family Foundation, Medium Evaluation Certification Process. The description of its science-based evaluation, the controlled sitter selection, the composite scoring, and its own statement that the process is very rigorous and that it does not provide training. https://foreverfamilyfoundation.org/medium-evaluation-certification-process/
• American Psychological Association, Barnum effect, APA Dictionary of Psychology. The named definition of the effect behind accepting vague, broadly applicable statements as personally accurate. https://dictionary.apa.org/barnum-effect

Related reading

• How to Choose a Spiritual Medium: 8 Signs You’ve Found a Trustworthy Practitioner
• What to Expect from Your First Mediumship Session
• Are Psychic Mediums Real? What the Evidence Actually Shows
• Can a Medium Help with Grief? How Mediumship Supports Healing After Loss
• What Is the Sanctuary Process? Elissa Rose’s Three-Stage Mediumship Methodology

About the Author

Michael listens to the pulse of the earth. His dowsing offers a grounded path to inner knowing, through stillness, presence, and trust. Together, we offer a place of authenticity, where roses bloom and the veil thins.