Psychic abilities help us get ahead, but there are shortcuts that we can use if we haven’t fully developped our skills through meditation. One of my favorites are pendulums, though we have to know how to work them, and how to filter out biases.
Before we get into the details, let me tell you about an early experience with pendulums, when I had only been enrolled at psychic school for a few months …
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I was looking for a job - I was finishing up a one year contract at a big company outside London. A great place to work, and I really wanted to land a permanent job at that company.
As far as I knew, there weren’t any job openings on my floor. I was in a marketing department with 40 people; we led product launches across Europe. My pendulum told me there would soon be an opening in marketing, and I set out to find out where.
So one night, I sat down, grounded and shielded my Aura, and then made a list of brand teams, writing each brand name on a small piece of paper. My marketing floor managed 8 brands, I was on one of those.
I folded up the pieces of paper so that I wouldn’t know which was which, and asked the pendulum to sort them into piles of YES and NO. You’re really asking your higher self and your soul - not the pendulum, per se. It signalled out one brand team as having an upcoming job opening.
Next, I wrote the names of the actual colleagues who were on that team, on separate pieces of paper, and asked who might be leaving. (It was an international team, and it wasn’t uncommon for us to move onto specific country teams)…
It said yes for a lady named Gianna. She sat in a cubicle near mine, reporting to a different marketing director. I wouldn’t have heard about that change organically.
The next morning, I walked into my marketing director’s office and mentioned, quite casually, that I had overheard someone say that Gianna was moving to a new post - did she know if that was true?
If so, could I apply?
My boss was shocked (not more than I, lol). It was true but still very hush hush. No one was supposed to know about it. Who had told me? I didn’t know what to say, and mentioned that I heard people talk, but didn’t recognize their voices 😂
Anyhooo, long story short, my boss caught up with Gianna’s boss to see if I could apply. It turned out that her job was going to be repurposed to a much higher level, well above my experience level (hers would have been within reach for me)…
So the pendulum was accurate; I just forgot to ask if that role was right for me. I ended up being promoted to a job in a different part of the company. It was awesome.
I started Diary of a Psychic Healer two months after taking that new job, in 2010. In those days, I did lots of experiments with my pendulum. Don’t stake your life on the answers; it gives direction, but we have to verify things. Anyhooo, this was one of my most memorable psychic experiences.
That job was in consumer healthcare (and I did love it there). My blog was anonymous until 2013; I kept it to myself. Some of my colleagues did know what I was up to.
Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, here passion is bringing love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing.
So a few years ago, I was contacted by Leah Thomas, a writer for Cosmopolitan, with questions about what it was like to study astrology. I was mentioned in a piece on skeptical men and astrology, read it here. The questions below were sent by Leah.
I am publishing the Q&A here with her permission. So what's it like to study astrology and magick IRL? 🔮
Where did you receive your astrology education?
I studied with several teachers but the one that shaped my approach to astrology was Demian Allan’s class at The College of Psychic Studies, back in 2015. His intro to Psychic Astrology and Magick turned my understanding of the stars upside-down. Most notable was a session where Demian had us walk on energetically charged Zodiac signs to see how we responded to Aries’ fire, Capricorn’s steadiness or Scorpio’s depth. I began to view the planets and Zodiac signs as dynamic energies that we could interact with on a daily basis.
What was school like — what were your classes? How did you schedule them? Did you get to choose them? Did you (/can you) specialize?
That particular school has been around since the 1880’s and it offers a huge range of classes – not just astrology. Students can specialize in a subject matter; I chose Angel Intuition and came across Astrology towards the end. Psychic Astrology classes run on Thursday nights, with optional workshops on weekends. If a student were enrolled in several subjects, say astrology and tarot or angels, the tutors would highlight overlapping themes. For example, that Archangel Raziel can help us make sense of natal charts, or the astrological themes of the different tarot cards.
What kind of assignments did you have? Homework, group work, quizzes, tests?
Initially we spent lots of time studying our natal charts to understand how it works. Homework involved using shortcuts such as birthdays or Aura scans to get a sense of dominant planets in the charts of friends and family. In one of the learning exercises, the tutor had us shake his hand and identify his Sun sign. I think I named his strongest planet instead.
Beyond that, the goal was to get a sense of how planetary transits affect our daily lives. We were tasked with keeping track of how we felt when the Moon traveled through the Zodiac. The program was free flowing – a building blocks approach that brought the natal chart to life around us. Later on, I signed up for an online predictive astrology class with The Dark Pixie Astrology. The class was fantastic in terms of the level of detail and homework assigned. We covered the technical side of predictions and kept a journal showing how the astrological timing matched up with real-life events. This aspect of astrology can be mathematical and logical – making assumptions and checking the results.
My experience as an astrology student has been eclectic and self-driven. I moved to a new country and had to look for online classes to complement what I learned in London.
How many students were there/how big were your classes? Were they like lectures or open discussions?
The classes were small – no more than eight in Psychic Astrology and up to 20 in the larger workshops. The basic theory was presented in lecture format with time for questions and answers. Once we had covered the planets, signs, and houses, each week was focused on a specific element of the natal chart and we had time to explore all of my classmate’s charts.
Did you have a favorite professor? Least favorite professor? Favorite class? Least favorite class? Tell me about it/them -- anything you think is most interesting.
The technical classes are essential for professional use, but they were my least favorite. A few years ago I took a planets and numerology class where we learned to activate our inner Jupiter, Mars or Mercury with specific mantras, yoga poses and sound meditations. Our teacher, Dalia Siman, blended kundalini yoga, planetary energies and practical Kabbalah with dance music (Naam Yoga). I am not much of a yogui myself - attending sporadic yoga classes, but this singing yoga class was always a favorite.
But the class that blew my mind was Astrology & Magick, again with Demian Allan. We learned to connect with the planets intuitively, downloading their energy so we could take it with us. I have almost no Water in my chart and cried for two days after bringing down the Moon in class. Since then I have been using similar meditations to incorporate other planets.
How long does it take to get a degree — how many specializations are there?
I went down the self-study route with astrology readings (so no degree), though I have taken several classes. Both of the schools where I studied offer certificates on energy healing and intuition. You'll find a recap of my studies on the Hermione Tab.
Finding a school that certifies professional astrologers is fantastic, as that will give you a clear understanding of when you are ready to see clients. It wasn't always easy to find one, but that changed with online classes. In my case, I began including astrology in angel, tarot and energy healing sessions long before I felt comfortable offering full astrology readings. After a few years, these morphed into astrological healing sessions.
Can you describe how various astrology schools are different from each other?
The class sizes vary and some schools are more technical than others. Astrology can be fun so choose a school that you enjoy, especially if the idea is to enhance self-awareness. On a personal note, I've learned as much from books – Jan Spiller’s Astrology for the Soul and Sue Tompkin’s Aspects In Astrology are my favorites. But how the chart comes together didn’t register until I signed up for Psychic Astrology and the tutor broke it down for us. As much as self-study works, taking a class made a difference.
How did you decide on yours?
To be honest – I had no idea what to expect when I signed up for Psychic Astrology. As an angel medium and energy healer, I was interested in using the stars as a roadmap for energy healing sessions. The outer layers of the Aura are imbued with the energy of our natal charts, and there are specific Chakras that we can heal and activate to connect with the planets. We can choose flower essences, crystals and essential oils to soften our Zodiac sign’s triggers. Planetary Magick also gives us a chance to download character traits that may be lacking. The idea is to work through your natal chart, and not succumb to it.
What’s one common misconception people have about astrology/astrology schools?
That the Sun Sign or Horoscopes define everything – there are many layers!
Any interesting/surprising/crazy/fun fact that might stand out?
Choose your words kindly, as you will touch on sensitive info in class. And if you are met with nervous laughter during an astrology reading, you have hit the nail on the head!
Thought I’d post this as I am ready to share more magick! Looking at how to do this online, or through zoom, at some point.
Join me on Youtube for guided meditations and check out the Menu Bar for more an intro to astrology. Read my books to heal yourself; here are all my astrology posts.
Regina Chouza is an energy healer, astrologer and author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, here passion is bringing love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to awaken your intuition and channel energy healing.
Over the years, I've had many takes on this question. Are spirit guides figments of our unconscious or our imagination? I think it's important to be open to being wrong, and not to become too attached to our beliefs.
But first, what are spirit guides?
The idea is that when we ask our intuition for answers, the answer can come from several places - I cover these options in my book, Chakra Healing & Magick, but basically, our intuition brings messages from the angels, spirit guides, your higher self and some would say, from God.
I didn't include the last one in my book, but basically, spirit guides are humans who lived on Earth and that have wisdom or special experience to share with us. Growing up Catholic, this didn't feel like a stretch because I was used to asking a particular saint for help. Like St Francis of Assisi. Asking an ancestor for guidance is common in Mexico too. But after I found my psychic school, my guides became a lot more colorful than that. In the past I've blogged about how I used to see a wizard in my early days as a psychic student. Funny enough, he helped me negotiate a new job for myself, with a much better salary.
But even then, I thought the wizard was a figment of my imagination, and I'd push him aside. Then my classmates started seeing him too,and I decided to take him seriously. This was in 2010 to 2011, when I was a psychic school newbie. I was still scared of magick and intuition - on one hand, I didn't think magick was real and I worried people would think I had lost my mind. This went on for a few years - even after I'd graduated as an energy healer. My inner skeptic has always been super loud. But by 2015, I was completely sold on healing yourself with magick. Soon after, I started writing Chakra Healing & Magick.
Round about that time, the wizard guide disappeared and I began to wonder if he had been a figment of my imagination or my unconscious. The latter would have been just as valuable as a real spirit guide...
My assumption was that the clairvoyant image was there to awaken the healer or magician in me, and that when I embodied that, he disappeared. I was sad when that happened, but magick is about who we become. Not that I'm a wizard LOL, but now I feel happy and comfortable talking about crystals, astrology, psychic abilities etc.
So imagine my surprise, when I started teaching intuition in 2016. My first big workshop was on psychic abilities, angels and goddesses. I led the students on a few guided meditations before putting them in small groups. Each of the groups would connect with an angel or guide - a mystical musical chairs where the students changed places to feel the energy of an angel vs. an archangel vs. a goddess. I had attended a similar workshop with one of my tutors, in 2010, when I was starting out. Loved it 🔮
> When I was splitting them up into small groups, that wizard guide came back and asked me to put him with a group. I told that specific group that they were connecting with one of my guides - a wizard. They expected someone solemn to appear, say Gandalf, but he is playful and fun. The cool thing is that when the students in that group talked about their experiences, they'd all seen and felt the same things. Like literally the same clairvoyant images, sensations etc. There were four or five people in the wizard group; one pair that was sitting opposite each other saw one specific image, the other pair sitting opposite each other saw a different image. I think it was geometric patterns, very simple and starlike. I wasn't guiding the meditation or telling them what to see, because 5-6 groups were meditating at the same time, each with a different archangel, guide or goddess.
So yes, I'm back to spirit guides being real. I have been there since 2016 LOL. They can be a lot of fun to connect with. Have a look at Chapter 6 to meet your guides: Psychic Development for Beginners 🌟🌟🌟
Regina Chouza is an energy healer, angel medium and the author of A Personal Guide to Self-Healing, Cancer & Love and Chakra Healing & Magick. Blogging at Diary of a Psychic Healer since 2010, her passion is bringing the qualities of love, joy and empowerment to healing pursuits. Read her books to awaken your intuition. Available on Amazon.
I’m on vacation in London for a few weeks - it has been ten years since I moved away and I find myself loving it. It’s my favorite city, by far. Didn’t realize just how many friends I still had here, and it’s been so cool catching up with everyone.
Along the way, I signed up for two workshops at my former psychic school - or the College, as we tend to call it affectionately. Funny enough, both workshops were held in the same room where I took my first classes, back in 2010, and where I later had to do a platform demonstration of angel readings. Have to admit I was feeling nostalgic.
The first workshop was taught by the remote viewer and psychic, Ann Théato. We began with a few intuition exercises to read each other’s Auras and pinpoint areas of tension. My classmate saw stuck energy in my left ankle (I wear a compression stocking that wasn’t visible) and in my tummy - both impressions, accurate.
But the big surprise came when the teacher had us do the same psychic meditation that we did in my first ever clairvoyance workshop, back in January 2010. You tune into your classmate’s home psychically, seeing and feeling it with your intuition, and describe it to them. When I attended that class 14 years ago, it totally blew my mind 🤩🤩🤩 Now it seems normal.
One of the things that stood out this week: I sensed that my classmate’s home should have music but that it wasn’t there. It turned out that her partner is a DJ and music was the norm for them, but his speakers broke down. The music was playing in his headphones, not the house. She was able to describe quite a few details too - my dog, decorations, etc.
By the looks of it, most if not all, of my classmates were able to remote view each other’s homes. The teacher’s way of working was direct, a quick opening meditation and onto the good stuff.
After that we changed partners and tried a new exercise that blended mediumship and clairvoyance - tuning into the home of a family member that had passed away and describing their home. We didn’t know who the person was; finding out was part of the class assignment.
I felt it was my classmate’s paternal grandmother, and when I described the house, the look on her face was a clear confirmation. I liked this approach because looking at a loved one’s house is emotionally easier than receiving messages. Even after all this time, I’m still not keen to go there, but it’s nice to know that it is possible. It gives people closure.
If you are interested in learning mediumship, Ann Théato teaches online at AnneTheato.com. And of course, mediumship has been a huge area of focus at The College of Psychic Studies since Queen Victoria’s days. Founded in 1884 🫶🏻
Reiki hugs,
Regina
Ps … I flopped at the classic remote viewing protocol. RV is a detailed psychic technique that has allegedly been used by law enforcement. My previous remote viewing posts can be found here (2013-14)
Psychic meditations are similar to dream analysis; we receive messages as images, sounds, scents and then interpret it when we are done. Sometimes the message comes to life completely in one session, but often it builds with time. In school, when we were doing psychic readings for another person we'd ask for their visuals and discuss it with them at the end.
This Fall I signed up for an online class atmy former psychic school. One of my classmates now teaches there, Liesl Duffy. It has been so much fun to be back in the student seat. We have been connecting with different angels and guides every week.
The weekly theme is always a surprise. Last month, I finally understood the music that I’d hearing in my personal meditations for nearly two years. Liesl told us that we would be connecting with a goddess and the meditation consisted of a journey to a temple where we would meet her. We would find out who she was once we arrived, not before.
Everything that I describe below came to me intuitively, without any music playing in class, and little narration.
From the outset I heard songs running through my mind. It felt (more than sounded) like a feminine voice ringing out from the jungle on our way into the temple. I am from Mexico and love the Pacific coast, hence the jungle. The clairaudient meditations that I have had the past few years have been similar - a powerful female voice echoing my words - but she has what feels like limitless reach. I will often get clips of music videos that I like too.
As we continued through the meditation, we were guided to approach a temple. The teacher who facilitates the class doesn't give many details and this leaves space for our intuition to fill in the blanks. I kept hearing music, often Shakira's DARE or Katy Perry's ROAR. Every now and then I heard snippets of Rihanna's "What's my name" with a variation on the lyrics, so that it went: INANNA, WHAT'S MY NAME. Then back to Roar.
I also got the impression that we could only enter if we danced our way in. All along the path there were people dancing - almost like they were listening to a cosmic concert. I am not much a dancer (but I do love music) so I was relieved to be the only witness to this meditation lol.
When we finally made it into the temple, Liesl told us that we were there to connect with an ancient goddess known as Inanna. I had connected with her intuitively in the past, usually a passing thought, but hadn't made a link between her and the music. Inanna was a fierce Sumerian goddess, looking after love, beauty, fertility, war, justice and political power.
In the past, when I have asked why this Goddess is relevant for me, the word ASTARTEcame to mind;the name used for Inanna in Phoenicia, from where the Lebanese (Maronite) side of my family hails. Not entirely sure what it means, and Inanna rings a bell more than Astarte does, but the musical vibration feels amazing. In previous posts I have written about manifesting with music; I believe this goddess amplifies the effect. We can connect with that beautiful energy.
Asfar as history is concerned, there was a religious following of Inanna thousands of years ago. It is likely the beliefs and practices were reflective of Sumerian culture at the time. I don't know much about it as the intuitive meditations are experiential in nature, focused on healing and personal development. The meditation was freeing, full of life and reflective of Katy Perry's Roar or Shakira's Dare. Just what I needed lol.
When class was wrapping up, Liesl mentioned Rihanna's What's My Name (Inanna) and talked about that feminine energy expressing itself through music, with confidence. This is common in psychic meditations as we are all tuned into the same current of energy.
