Have we been introduced?

A Bittersweet Confluence

Hello,

I may have written to you recently, or you may be reading this article after not hearing from me for a long time. At some point in the last decade, you signed up for a free thing, bought my book, registered for one of my events, or subscribed to hear from me via Substack or another channel.

Thank you for that.

I’ve been slowly returning to work after maternity leave, and I’ve gathered all previous channels where you might have heard from me, and brought you all together here, on Substack. If you have kids you’ll understand the need for streamlining and simplification!

I’m writing this article to reintroduce myself to you, in the hopes that we can continue to be in touch. If you don’t want that, that’s fine too. You can unsubscribe at any time (even now, if you like!)

Anyway, by way of re-introduction, my name’s Lauren. I’m a lifelong medium, and I write about survival of human consciousness after death and related topics. Mediumship has been my profession for almost a quarter of a century now, and I’m passionate about sharing my knowledge to bring on the next generation of compassionate, confident and accurate mediums.

I’d consider myself a confident medium now, but it wasn’t always that way.

I was a sensitive kid. I could catch a vibe if something was wrong with the grownups in my life, and the playground was utterly deafening. Beyond emotional sensitivity and sensitive hearing, I was always told, ‘you have an old head on young shoulders’.

Little me with my Gran (Mamie Robertson) and Uncle Gordon.

This sensitivity blossomed into mediumship through a bittersweet confluence of loss, joy, and guidance from source in the form of synchronicities.

Bereavement makes mediums. I think this is true of almost all of us. Our cat, Coco, died when I was in primary school. She was 24 years old. The loss of a pet is so incredibly hard. They are unconditional love embodied.

Then my mum’s father, Grandpa Dale, died when I was 14. I remember going to school and standing with my hand poised over the classroom door, unable to make myself go in because I was crying so hard and couldn’t stop.

Besides Grandpa Dale’s passing, my teenage years were a difficult time in my life, full of turmoil, confusion and unwanted change. I felt completely alone and abandoned for reasons I may talk about one day, but not now.

But it was the death of my Gran Robertson, Mamie, when I was 17 that hit me the hardest and triggered my mediumship.

Those of you who have read my book, The Medium in Manolos, will know that my Gran and I were very close. Every kid needs one adult in their life who adores them and delights in them, and she was that for me.

She developed breast cancer and kept it a secret until it was too late. She died on Valentines Day.

Shortly after her death, she came to me in a dream. She told me that death was only a change, and that she was very much alive and feeling well again. She placed one index finger lightly on each of my hips and lifted me off the ground as if I were weightless. She told me that it was my life’s mission to show people that we continue on after death. I had no idea what she was talking about.

For two years prior to my gran’s death, I began reading everything I could about spirituality. Now, looking back, I understand that I was searching for a stable, loving parent in God, to fill that vacancy in my heart, and in my life. I gravitated towards paganism, dream analysis and angels. I was often ill with tonsilitis, and time spent in bed was spent learning all I could about these subjects, culminating in my teaching myself to read angel cards.

One day, at school, the headmaster came round and announced that we were going to set up some stalls in the common room, and devise activities to do or things to sell to raise money for charity. Those who participated would be exempt from class for the day. I happened to have my angel cards in my bag, and I’d do anything to get out of maths, so I set myself up at a table in the common room and offered angel card readings in exchange for donations.

At first, it was a trickle. I read for my friend Holly, and told her she was going to be a midwife. She’s still a midwife to this day.

A trickle turned into a queue out the door populated by the school’s football team, among an assortment of other kids.

My very last reading of the day was my maths teacher!

As I wrapped up my cards and my table cloth, I felt completely elated.

You’re supposed to be doing this. The gentle voice said.

Things went a bit wrong at school after that. Between illness, loneliness, angst and a lack of guidance, I just stopped going. I was alone in my bedroom a lot, reading about spirituality, or out with boys and men who had no business having access to me. No one cared who I was with or what I was doing. I was lucky not to end up pregnant, missing or dead.

I remember the day school asked me to leave and never come back. The drama department, which, ironically, had been my favourite subject, was the first domino that sent the others falling.

Between my absences and an embarrassing instance of being overheard calling another student a ‘shithead’, they developed a hatred and unforgiveness towards me. I apologized instantly and profusely for what I had done wrong. They didn’t accept it. I told them if I lost the credits from their class I’d get kicked out of school. They didn’t care. Which is a pretty shameful way to treat a teen whose sudden change in behaviour is clearly an indication that something is wrong at home.

The day I got kicked out of school was a sunny day. I remember sitting on the bus with mixed feelings of relief, elation, sadness and fear. My main thought was ‘my mum’s going to kill me’. So I made a plan that, when I got home, I’d go on the computer and find a job so that I could say, ‘I got kicked out of school, but I also got a job.’

So I booted up our computer and waited for the ‘beep beep boop’ of dial up. I went to the Job Centre website, where you go to become employed as a waitress, a shelf stacker, or a call-centre operative. Normal stuff.

I filled out a form to be matched instantly with appropriate jobs in my area.

It asked me questions like:

Are you creative?

Do you like people?

What hours can you work?

I clicked submit while thinking, ‘no job could possibly fit these preferences for a 16 year old who just got kicked out of school’.

The search returned one listing:

‘Psychics, mediums and angel card readers wanted in Glasgow and surrounding.’

My jaw fell open and the hairs on my arms stood up. I could feel the benevolent gaze of source resting upon me, guiding me down this path.

Immediately, I called the owner of the ad and was invited to her home for an interview, and to give her a test reading. I was so nervous. I really wanted this. I had my angel cards in my school bag as I approached her home and rang her doorbell. Her name was Ali. The owner of Second Sight.

The interview went well and I was offered a job as a reader at Second Sight, an event company that hosted spirituality events all over Scotland. I’ll never forget my first night on the job. I was supposed to be shadowing another reader to learn the ropes. I arrived at Ali’s house only to be told that two of the readers had called in sick. Not only would I have to give 10 full, paid readings with no shadowing or training, but I’d have to give a demonstration as well, as part of the floor show!

I excused myself to the bathroom. My face was grey and my lips were blue. My hands trembled. Despite this, I agreed. The gentle voice inside nudged me and told me I could do it.

The event was at a pub called The Black Bull in Cumbernauld, just outside Glasgow.

We opened the door and the noise from 120-some women, all there for a psychic night, was incredible. Imagine? 16 years old, not even legal to be in a pub, expected to command an audience with no rehearsal, and tell mature women what in their life needs fixing on behalf of “the angels”. I laugh now, thinking about it. Thank god for the AUDACITY and BRAVERY / STUPIDITY of teenagers.

A psychic night for Epilepsy Scotland, after my dem. I was DEEP in my Doreen Virtue, goddess dress phase, clearly!

That was the start of a long career with Second Sight in which I must’ve done tens of thousands of readings and public demonstrations all over Scotland, and eventually, further afield. Over the years, more and more spirit people appeared in the readings I gave. At first with the angels, then through the tarot. I developed such a love for the unique intimacy and healing power of mediumship, that I eventually dropped all my tools (angel cards, tarot, tea leaves etc.) to focus exclusively on bringing forward evidence of survival.

I became restless, and my time with Second Sight came to an end when I could no longer ignore my deep hunger to continue my education.

I had desperately wanted to go to University, but my unfortunate departure from school had closed that door. By this point, I would be classed as a ‘mature’ student, and this opened another opportunity for me to go to Uni.

I wanted to study Philosophy and English Literature at University of Glasgow, so I could write books about mediumship. I applied for a place on a pre-degree year, which I had to complete to qualify to enter the degree program. I received my grade, and I got in! Being at Uni was some of the happiest years of my life. I graduated with honours in 2015, having specialized in consciousness studies, and I won the best-in-year prize for English literature along the way.

By this point, I’d had some miraculous experiences with spirit. Through my mediumship, the spirit world had reunited an adopted child (now a woman) with her birth mother, added hundreds of years of life to various people through timely health comments that led to and treatment, and restored families torn apart by hurt and misunderstanding.

I had a solid roster of regular clients (and a loooong waitlist). I was giving dems at spiritualist churches, corporate events, charity nights, and my own events. Through being self-taught, I had developed my own way of deepening and evolving my mediumship through introspection, self-understanding, and transcending the human-made blocks of fear, self-doubt and discouragement. I spent a year training as a success coach for mediums, and around that time, I had an idea for a book. I wanted to write a training manual for mediums based on introspection and overcoming fears and blocks. Besides mediumship, I loved fashion, and I wanted to encourage mediums to accept their whole selves as the instrument for spirit, even the parts they judged as irrelevant or even unspiritual. Whether you’re into fashion, fishing or films, it all contributes to your unique blend with spirit. The title The Medium in Manolos was given to me by the gentle voice one day, in the shower.

It was a dream come true to be offered a book deal by Hay House. I had read so many of their authors at different points in my life, and in 2017, The Medium in Manolos was published. If you bought it, borrowed it, read it, or listened to it. Thank you.

Across 2017 and 2018, right after my book was published, I was hurtled through another huge surge of instability and transformation in my life. Here’s what happened in 12 months:

• Published The Medium in Manolos with my dream publisher, Hay House.

• My maternal grandmother, Gran Dale, passed away.

• I quit drinking.

• I learned to drive.

• I got carbon monoxide poisoning and had to move home.

• My fiancé left the country for 7 months to shoot a movie and started a relationship with another woman.

• I went through a separation and moved home again.

• I got my coaching certification and travelled to Paris, LA, Florence, Miami and Cape Town.

• I started the coaching arm of my company with great success.

• I had both the most money I’d ever had, and the least.

• I had both the most time I’d ever had, and the least.

And right at the end of 2018, I met a wonderful man - protective, loyal, devoted and handsome - who is now my husband.

Steady, loving and an awesome dad. What more could a woman ask for?

I’ll never know how so many highs and lows fit into one year, nor how I survived them all! But here we are, still.

Since meeting my husband, Corbin, in 2018, my priorities have been finding stability, making a home, and starting a family. Doing so has healed prior wounds in my heart that I thought were unhealable.

Corbin and I got married in 2022, our daughter arrived in 2023, and our son arrived in 2024.

Striding about Pompeii on our honeymoon while 6 months pregnant with my daughter!

Becoming a mother has enriched my mediumship in many ways. I’ll write an article about it soon, but the short version is that I nearly lost my life giving birth to my daughter, and I was visited by blue beings during the birth of my son. I saw that birth and death are the meeting points of a circle, and that the spirit world is the next room to ours, separated by the flimsiest of paper walls.

In the short time I’ve known them, my kids have taught me the true meaning of love, and caused me to reckon with the corresponding depth that grief could go. This has added new weight and meaning to my work with spirit.

In 2025 we bought our first home in a pretty suburb outside Glasgow. We’ve been renovating it, and quietly raising our little family.

Corbin with our kids at Duck Bay, Loch Lomond.

2026 is a big year (as if the others haven’t been!). I turn 40 in July. My daughter is in nursery a few days per week so I can finally come up for air after the deep immersion that is early motherhood. And I’m ready to get back to work.

I’m doing the most I can with what little time I have outside of motherhood! We have just wrapped on Platform Perfection which is a 9 week course for mediums who want to master public demonstrations. I absolutely loved teaching this class, and the mediums who joined were a sheer delight.

I’m also in the early stages of a PhD by publication under the supervision of Professors Chris Roe and Callum E Cooper. Currently, I’m writing about whether spirit communicators have agency which is distinct from that of the sitter and the medium. Spoiler alert: I think they do.

I’m also writing for you here on Substack. I’m giving dems and teaching workshops as a guest speaker at events on the condition that they require zero planning or organization from me. And I’ve launched The Spirit Circle. It’s a weekly meeting on Zoom for mediums who want to deepen their mediumship in a supportive space through consistency, introspection, and practice readings with feedback. We meet each Tuesday from 7pm-9pm UK time, and we’re open for all levels of mediumship development from beginner to professional.

Thank you for your precious time and attention in reading this far. This is the first time I’ve mentioned many of the details of my story, especially the ones that don’t fit the ‘love and light’ narrative, which is an idea often deployed to smother the sometimes-uncomfortable nuances of life.

I hope you’ll stay subscribed for more words on mediumship, but if not, that’s ok. You’ll be missed, but life, and mediumship, have taught me to take the bitter with the sweet.

Lauren

Ps. One thing I love about Substack vs. other newsletter platforms is that you can share your thoughts too! I’d love to get to know a bit about you and how we met in a comment below. I’ll read them all and reply to the first 10.