Welcome to Mystic Echoes, a new Underworld Tales Magazine Column. My name is Marie St. Claire, and I'm a medium and psychic.  I connect to people and situations from the past through what's called channeling (You can read about the psychic investigations that I've detailed by following the Case File links on the left.).

You may have heard of channeling.  It's a means of mentally obtaining information through an external source.  

Psychics use various tools in order to channel information--some may use tarot cards, some may obtain information from objects, some have the ability to see spirits, some can tune into a spiritual guide who transmits messages. 

I channel directly.  I do not go into a trance.  I get into a deep state of relaxation, and through a certain mode of concentration, I somehow make a mental connection and can communicate with a spirit or spirits much like remote viewing.  To be honest, I don't know exactly how I do this or why I have this ability.  I only know that I can do it at will.

 I've always had psychic ability, being able to occasionally see into the future through dreams.  And a few times I've had startling and even scary revelations about crimes, etc. that came to me as if of their own will.  But, for many years, I didn't know how to control this ability or how to purposefully find the information I sought.  I only learned how to connect by accident while practicing relaxation techniques, and after I connected for the first time, I was so excited that I couldn't wait to do it again. However, connecting at will would be the hard part and would take much trial and error.  My efforts were worthwhile, because, since then, I've connected time and time again.

But I wasn't satisfied with connecting alone. I wanted to do more than explore for my own enjoyment.  So next, I began to test what I'd seen and learned during my connection through a research phase where I plug in what I saw during the connection to known facts or leads.   I've been amazed at the solutions I've come up with in doing so.

I know that this ability is also a journey, and I still have so much to learn, but making a connection is so exciting and can be so rewarding when I obtain some crucial information.  I believe this ability is good for my soul and good for those who lost their lives to a terrible tragedy.  They deserve to be heard, and being heard gives them a sense of peace.

Sometimes, however, my experiences  in psychic travel aren't good, like when I first tried to connect to the Black Dahlia and received only her feelings of terror.  Another time, I was investigating the ghosts on the R.M.S. Queen Mary, merely trying to learn some of their identities, and I encountered a negative male entity that haunted me through the night--but I'll discuss that in more depth in my Case Files.

Sometimes, it doesn't work, and I can't make a connection, but so far about 90% of the time, the connection is successful.  Sometimes, I connect, but gain no information, or the information I receive comes only in the form of symbols, or I'm confused about what I've seen or learned and don't know what to make of it.  Or I couldn't quite make out what the spirit was trying to say--the voices can sound like a mumble or a static filled radio connection. At other times, the information I receive is astoundingly clear, such as in the Black Dahlia case, and I'm able to easily solve the mystery.

I follow strict rules when I investigate a case psychically.  I never start out knowing all of the facts about a case.  What fun would that be?  Besides, the last thing I want to do is fill my mind with information that could lead me in a false direction, or worse, to an inaccurate conclusion. I conduct these investigations solely  in search of truth.  

I do have to know a certain amount of information before I can connect, because I have to form a mental picture of the situation.  In the Black Dahlia case, I knew only the very basic facts.  I had never extensively researched the case and knew only that Elizabeth Short had been brutally murdered and that the case had remained unsolved.

It's only after I've connected psychically and obtained what I felt was crucial information that I go to the next phase...research.  I do this to see how the  information that I obtained fits into the verified and known facts, and from that, I derive a conclusion or solution. 

I'm continually looking for new and exciting cases to solve, and will present them here.  I hope that you will enjoy my psychic research as much as I have and will find the information that I convey here enlightening.

Marie St. Claire
July 2004