Jennifer Lisa Vest - The Ethical Psychic: a Beginners Guide to Healing with Integrity, Avoiding Unethical Encounters, and Using Your Gifts for Good

Copyright 2022 by Jennifer Lisa Vest, PhD. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books
Huichin, unceded Ohlone land
aka Berkeley, California
Cover art hanakaz via Getty Images
Cover design by Jess Morphew
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

The Ethical Psychic: A Beginner's Guide to Healing with Integrity, Avoiding Unethical Encounters, and Using Your Gifts for Good is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit based in the unceded Ohlone land Huichin (aka Berkeley, CA) that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives; nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing; and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publisher Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vest, Jennifer Lisa, author.
Title: The ethical psychic : a beginners guide to healing with integrity,
avoiding unethical encounters, and using your gifts for good / by
Jennifer Lisa Vest, Ph.D.
Description: Berkeley, California : North Atlantic Books, [2022] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003238 | ISBN 9781623177386 (trade paperback) | ISBN
9781623177393 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychics. | Ethics.
Classification: LCC Bc10f040 .V47 2022 | DDC 130dc23/eng/20220224
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003238

For my mother, Michele (MIKE-ul) Lee Davis,

who was a psychic before it was OK to be one

and who warned me about the dangers of this work.

I was listening, Mom.

And it harms none, do what ye will

Witches Rede

I began writing this guidebook in the second month of 2017, less than two weeks after the inauguration of one of the most unpopular presidents in United States history. The country was in turmoil. Record numbers of people were taking to the street to protest and a majority of the population was concerned that we were in the midst of a moral turning point. The greatest critique being made of the US president and his cabinet in 2017 was neither a political nor a policy critiqueit was a moral one. The world was terrified by the possible consequences that could result from a presidency that lacked moral standards.

At this time I was teaching a class called Conscious Psychic, which I first began teaching in 2012, in my living room, to a handful of students under the title, Develop Your Sixth Sense to Shift Your Consciousness. I would explain to my students that my class was different from other psychic development classes because I wasnt just teaching them how to develop their gifts, I was teaching them how to develop their gifts in service to the planet. As such, I frequently spoke about ethics. Some of my students groaned and complained about this frequent emphasis. Others just chalked it up to old habits dying hard. I was, after all, a former Professor of Philosophy who had taught ethics to college students for many years. Maybe I just couldnt help myself. While some students appreciated the ethical content, others tired of it and went in search of easygoing teachers who would teach them how to cast spells and other self-serving skills.

Over the years, I had the misfortune of seeing some of my spellcasting former students turn to filthy magic or the dark arts and other abusive psychic practices. They had rebelled against my teachings because I had often warned against pursuing such practices. Their decision to jettison ethics resulted in exactly what I had cautioned against. This confirmed my belief that teaching students how to be ethical psychics was of paramount importance.

Over the years I have taught a number of courses in the psychic and healing arts including Mediumship, Medical Intuition, Reiki, Intuitive Healing Energetics, Akashic Records, and others. In each of these, I emphasized the importance of ethics, and as time went on, I became convinced of the need to collect all of my teachings into a book.

A person can be gifted but use their gifts in an unethical manner. This book will address this problem and provide ethical guidelines. Psychically gifted persons have a responsibility to those without gifts. There are limits as to how psychic gifts should be employed. Just because a person can read someones mind doesnt mean they should. It is not ethical to use ones psychic gifts to seduce. And while there is nothing wrong with making large sums of money using ones psychic gifts, there are conditions that must be met when doing so.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of people claiming to have psychic (psi) gifts and wanting to develop or share them. At the same time, interest in all topics related to psi has grown. More and more people consult psychics, mediums, medical intuitives, life coaches, spiritual advisors, and healers. Increasingly, people are leaving traditional religions to join nondenominational spiritual bodies. More and more people are also using integrative and holistic health practitioners, and there has been a surge in interest in books published on esoteric and psi topics.

People are bringing their most pressing life and health problems to psychically gifted practitioners of various kinds instead of to establishment Western healers. This is evidence of a planetary shift in consciousness. So many factors are coming together now: the planetary shift in consciousness, political upheaval, the increased codependent needs of the general population, and an increase in the number of light workers developing their gifts. Now is the time. All of these factors make it more important than ever that psychics behave ethically and that standards be established for psychic work.

How does the average psychic learn how to be ethical? I teach my students how to be ethical, but my classes cannot reach the growing number of light workers developing every day. This guidebook was written to assist the many aspiring and practicing psychics in taking special care in how they practice their craft so they might assist in the global shift in consciousness.

I wonder how many young bucks today qualify to become medicine [people]. They think in terms of glory. It is not glorious. That is not how I see itit requires many sacrifices... it is not a glory thing and it is nothing to brag about.

Peter S. Catches, Lakota Medicine Man

Psychic gifts, like other talents, can be used for positive or negative purposes. Just because a person has psychic gifts doesnt mean they are spiritually evolved. Throughout history, people in a variety of cultures have feared psychics (or supersensory persons) for good reason. There have always been people who have used their gifts to overpower others. Some people knowingly use their gifts for ill; some people harm others with their gifts through ignorance. A supersensory person who is not ethical can and often does cause harm. And a psychic who does not intentionally decide to be ethical will very often fail to be ethical. As one well-known twentieth century psychic explained it: ESP is a will instrument. All persons having strong wills have a greater capacity to call forth ESP powers. If the will is forceful or selfishly designed, ESP becomes an instrument of destruction.