People often ask if having psychic ability is a sign that those who possess it are more spiritually developed. The short answer to that is no. Psychic ability has no bearing on how spiritually evolved someone is.
That said, psychic ability can influence the way a person views the world. While I am not terribly psychic, I have interviewed many people who are over the past three years for my two books and I have observed the following. Most people who have the ability to communicate with the dead, foretell future events through dreams or visions and/or travel out of body realize pretty quickly that this world is a very temporary place. Most are not afraid of dying, however, a few mentioned to me that they’re nervous about the suffering that might occur during the transition from life to death. (Aren’t we all?)
Of those who choose to become professional psychics—and most people don’t—many are very spiritual people who genuinely want to help others through their work. Some are a tad preoccupied with money (we do, after all, have to make a living on the physical plane), and a very small minority (only met two people who fit into this category) become egotistical about the attention they get as psychics and develop a power complex.
This analysis is by no means scientific, just observational. Although a professional survey was done several years ago by Andrew M. Greeley, director of the Center for the Study of American Pluralism, National Opinion Research Center, where 1500 people were asked about their beliefs, including psychic phenomena and the study had two very interesting findings. First, people who were psychic were more likely to have firm spiritual beliefs because their psychic experiences affirmed them. Second, people who experienced psychic events were far less likely to be racial bigots. Understanding that our physical bodies are nothing more than vehicles our energetic selves use to ride through life makes it difficult to take size, color or gender very seriously. They are all transient conditions, anyway.
In my first book, Loitering at the Gate to Eternity, many of the people who shared their psychic stories with me were devoutly religious and saw no conflict between their experiences and their religious doctrine. Those who were not religious, were often deeply philosophical, with a general viewpoint that we are all one in this world and in the next. In my second book, due out next year, those observations still hold true. So, I would not say that psychic ability is a sign of spiritual development, but I would say that it can move someone in that direction if they choose to understand it as a conduit to learning about themselves and a way of showing compassion and support to others.
