Taking calls from the other side – the work of mediums

“While other mothers will brag about their children’s abilities, my mother doesn’t say, ‘Well, my daughter speaks to dead people!’”

This is how Tali (Mansur) Janet jokes about the unconventional role of being a medium, a role which, over time, she has come to accept as tremendously positive. “I’m blessed with an amazing gift, but I always tell people I’m just the telephone box – the souls pass messages through to me.”

Janet, along with Bev Kaplan and Lara Katz – the latter has asked for her name to be changed for anonymity – are all Jewish women who are able to practice what they describe as the channelling of various energies which includes those of people who have died, and connecting with spiritual guides.

As a child, Janet remembers being terrified of birds and the dark, “lining up my fluffy toys as protectors”. She also used to see things that “I would try and touch but I couldn’t”. Kaplan remembers her first encounter at the age of 14, sensing a “masculine energy” in a room, yet she remained calm.

“The only person I shared the experience with was my late mother. She actually had the gift as well but she never told anyone. The subject was very taboo in those days.”

Both Kaplan and Janet tried to block out these early experiences for years.

Kaplan said she began to work with it only after her mother died in 2005. After her mother’s funeral in 2005, she remembers walking to her car when “there was something that made me look to my left. I saw her standing next to her mother, and they both looked younger, happy, and healthy. I could see them with my eyes like I would see a person standing in the room next to me.”

In 2009, her father died, and a few months later, she went for a spiritual reading herself in which she received a message from her paternal grandmother that it was time “to follow my heart and do what she never did”. Kaplan discovered the abilities existed on both sides of her family.

Janet jokes that she “went through a lot of electronics” before she accepted what her abilities were. “I went through four video machines, digital cameras, laptops, a stove top, tumble dryer, gate motor and iPad. My energy was frenetic. I was so freaked out at the beginning. I realised I would have to calm down, but it wasn’t easy because there are very few people who will talk about this.”

She said at first, she was worried she was losing her mind, a feeling Katz echoes. “It was disconcerting when I found out I could do this. When you start seeing the departed and hearing messages, it’s shocking and you think you are crazy.”

However, for Katz, once she began passing on these messages and the information was verified, she knew “it was real”.

“Over time, you learn to trust the information and learn that it’s about ‘tuning in’ to experience the connection,” she says.

All three have come to see the profound benefit of their gift, but also the extreme caution with which it must be practiced.

They each “channel” in different ways based on different sensory experiences and strengths, whether it’s seeing, hearing, feeling, or even smelling a presence. Katz said souls come to her in different forms, sometimes simply as light, others in detailed human form. Janet specifically asks the soul to come through in human form “at their best stage of their life”. Janet said the process was further complicated because the medium is then offering their interpretation of the stimuli they receive.

What they have in common is that they will never call on souls, but rather souls come to them. “It’s like a sneeze – you let what comes, come; you surrender to the process,” said Katz.

Janet said she also warned clients that on rare occasions, no soul presented itself, in which case the session wouldn’t proceed.

What none of the mediums is willing to do is tell fortunes or read the future. “A true psychic will never ever show the future because the future can change,” said Katz. Kaplan explains that it can be dangerous in that it interferes with a person’s free will. Moreover, some difficulties are part of the growth the soul is expected to experience in life. Ultimately, said Janet, “The reality is you have to define your life; it’s not for someone else to do.”

Instead, they offer messages of closure, guidance, and confirmation that loved ones and spiritual forces watch over us.

Chereen Marcus was given advice in a channelling session that helped her to reflect on the choices she was making in her life. The experience gave her “such a sense of faith that as much as it says it’s against the [Jewish] faith, actually I have more faith in Hashem and the spiritual world because of it.”

Another client said that receiving affirmation that her father continued to protect the family and noticed and appreciated the care she gave her mother who was still alive manifested in a visceral experience of warmth surrounding her, even his presence hugging her. She also received confirmation about a miscarriage she had had, about which the medium had no knowledge. She was told the soul was being cared for, and that the child she lost had been the presence which her daughter had described as an imaginary friend during childhood. The session left her with “such an incredible sense of peace and comfort that I felt I didn’t have to do another channelling again. I walked away so fulfilled.”

The mediums relate to their Jewish identity and the work they do in different ways. They all emphasise that their practices aren’t bound by religion. According to Kaplan, they work on an elemental level with energy. “The universe is made of energy. Energy can never be destroyed, it can only be transformed and transmuted. So the truth is we never die; we literally transform. When someone transitions, it’s literally an aspect of their consciousness that communicates with us.”

“The Torah forbids us to communicate with the dead,” said Rabbi Ari Shishler, referencing Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

Judaism believes that “souls leave residual energy, almost like DNA markers in places where they have been”, said Shishler. This “energy stamp” might be what psychics connect to.

Although practice in this realm is forbidden, in terms of belief, Judaism does affirm that there is a reality after death, Shishler said. “We believe that relatives are aware of some of what happens to their descendants. Our tradition teaches that up to three generations of ancestors join us at family simchas.”

Furthermore, Judaic belief is that “should there be a value in a spirit communication, the spirit would reach out to us [as you often hear from people, especially through dreams], rather than us choosing to disturb them.”

Moreover, Judaism doesn’t believe that our personal development on earth is connected to the experience either of our souls before birth – such as through ideas like past-life regression – or with the journey of other souls after death.

“All we need to grow spiritually and to heal is available within our world, here and now. In the words of the Torah, we are to have simple faith and sincerity in order to come close to G-d. Trying to cross over or work out all the answers may well drive us away from Him.”

Janet said she was aware of Jewish thought on the topic, and respected this opinion completely. An important boundary for her is that she will never disturb or call a soul, only receive a message if it’s given to her.

This is a key point for all three, who caution that there are extremely dangerous aspects to the realm which no one should dabble with. “It’s not okay is to go and conjure the dead. You don’t play with Ouija boards. That’s delving into hectic dark stuff; you don’t mess with that,” said Kaplan.

They hope their work affirms that death isn’t the spiritual end point. Katz said she hopes her work gives people gentle guidance and comfort in knowing that no matter how sick and damaged the body was, the soul is free and pain free.

“Many people feel so disconnected, and this lets them know that they aren’t alone. Even though people aren’t physically present, their love is always with the living.”

For Kaplan, it’s important for people to realise that in their own lives, they have “no competition” when it comes to their journey. “It’s your own growth and spirituality; your own way in life. Everyone has healing to do; otherwise they wouldn’t be here.”