Written by Katie Mullen

Apparently, he was sitting right next to me with his arm around me the whole time. He wanted me to know he is always with me and he is helping my spirit navigate through the difficulties every college student and human being in general encounters. He was explaining that he was taken suddenly, which is true. I was told that he was snapping his fingers and saying that everything slowed down and then boom—he was gone. I was told he had a great sense of humor and he is not upset with where he is now; I found that comforting. I was asked if he was cremated. He was.

My cousin died just over three years ago in a freak accident. A medic in the military, he was patrolling the shooting range on a base when a stray bullet hit him directly in the heart.  I do not talk about the loss of my cousin and yet a perfect stranger was able to tell me intimate details about him. He could see him next to me and was able to tell me his favorite drink and candy.

The man telling me these personal things about my cousin—things that even I did not know—was Felix Lee Lerman, a natural born psychic medium. According to Lerman, all mediums are psychics but not all psychics are mediums. The difference between the two is psychics perceive and mediums receive. In other words, psychics take a person’s energy and interpret that in a way that feels like they are looking into the future. Mediums on the other hand communicate with spirits, more commonly referred to as “the dead”, and relay the message to the living.

When Lerman was eight-years-old his grandfather passed away—his first experience with death. “I would kiss him on the cheek everyday when I got home from school. I would watch football with him and we use to eat beer nuts together,” he reminisced.

About a week after the loss, Lerman had a dream in which his grandfather visited him. “It was so real, so normal,” says Lerman. “He would pour me some milk and we would talk. I could smell his cologne, I could feel the stubble on his cheek.”

Lerman remembers his parents being very open and supportive when he told them about his dreams but admits that there were many that did not believe him. “I’d like to think they have come around to the idea by now,” says Lerman. At the time of the dreams, Lerman had no idea what a medium was.

The dreams and visions did not stop. He continued to communicate with and see his grandfather and others. He started reading books about divination; he became extremely enthralled by the idea of where we go after we die. Eventually, he also started to see colors surrounding strangers; this is when he realized that he was a psychic as well as a medium. By the time he was in college, he was receiving messages from those in spirit and giving them to the people that were open to hearing them.

In 2002, Lerman was confirmed by an internationally acclaimed psychic medium. Shortly after, he enrolled in mediumship development classes at the Holistic Studies Institute in hopes of mastering his gift. He earned the certification as an Intuitive Consultant from the American Board of Holistic Practitioners.

Lerman has now dedicated his life to mastering and using his abilities to help people. It is mentally straining to connect with spirits and he says he has to be in the right mind-set. He explains the three components that contribute to the successfulness of a reading; the spirits, the person or people seeking the reading, and the reader. If any part of this trio is off, the reading will not be a success.

Some still doubt that Lerman is a medium, heck I had my doubts too. “Its good to be skeptic,” says Lerman. “There are two types of skepticism. There is open skepticism, which most people are. Then there’s closed skepticism, which I work with and I understand that maybe they have been hurt by other mediums who couldn’t do what they say they could do. I don’t care if they’re skeptic, my job is to help them.”

My reading with Lerman was not my first encounter with a medium. I had been read by a friend of Lerman’s, Kay Fahlstrom, who studied the art of mediumship under his guidance.

Fahlstrom had a near-death experience in her early twenties before her premonitions and dreams began. She was planning to see her friend after work but decided not to because she had been having awful headaches. Instead of making the trip, she went home and turned up the he heat attempting to keep warm. Little did she know, that heater was leaking carbon monoxide that could have killed both her and her cat. That night, Fahlstrom says she left her body. She was unable to remain alive due to lack of oxygen and she suffered what is called a “textbook death”. Her downstairs neighbor was a nurse who was also suffering headaches eventually figured out the problem and ran upstairs to save Fahlstrom’s life.

Fahlstrom realized she had special gifts. She says her first experience with a psychic premonition was a dream about the lottery numbers the night before they were drawn—but no, she never bought a ticket. After that, she received a warning for her brother before he set sail into sever weather. That warning saved her brothers life.

Fahlstrom is a Certified Spiritual Advisor of the Lisa Williams School of International Spiritual Development. She does readings for people in need to try and help them heal or get answers that they so desperately need.

My reading with Fahlstrom was done via phone, a concept that felt odd to me. This woman was telling me that she would communicate with my loved ones for me and tell me what my future has in store for me without ever laying eyes on me? It is hard to believe in mediumship in the first place but this just seemed a step further than impossible. But, I did the reading with an open mind and was amazed at the things she told me.

She began by walking me through what my spirit guides had to say. She explained to me that everyone has a master spirit guide. Some people just have the one and others have multiple guides. The master guide is not someone that we knew in our lifetime, they have been with us since the beginning but the other guides are loved ones that we knew who have crossed over. Each guide helps you with a different aspect of your life such as school, work, relationships, and everything in between. Fahlstrom explained that spirit guides use to be human so they know what we are going through, people also have angels but they were never human.

I wouldn’t say that the accuracy of her words freaked me out, but they did baffle me. The information from my spirit guides was only the beginning, what she told me next was what really got me.

She started by saying, “I have an older woman here for you, she feels like grandma. Do you have at least one grandma in spirit?” I do not. Both of my grandmothers are living. But she was sure of herself. She went on to tell me that the spirit was talking about memory issues and saying, “My brain is not up to snuff.” That’s when I knew it was indeed my grandmother. My dad’s mother has Alzheimer’s and has been unable to talk and communicate with us for a while. Fahlstrom then told me that it is possible for a spirit to move on before the body does. My grandma began communicating with me through Fahlstrom and it became more and more clear that it was her. She showed Fahlstrom a hot plate of lasagna, my dad’s favorite meal that she would make him. She also talked about how I was special to her, I was her star.

I could go on and on about what both Fahlstrom and Lerman said that was spot-on accurate. There were times in the reading that I would be asked about a name such as, “Who’s Jack” or “Who’s Bitty”, and I had no idea who these people are. It made me think maybe the readings were not in fact accurate, maybe I so badly wanted to communicate with the people that I have lost that I am making things up and justifying them in my head. Then, I listened to the readings with my parents. It turns out, Jack is my great-grandfathers name and all the information that was said about him was correct. And Bitty, that’s my moms favorite aunt that was just dropping by to say hello.