Rev. Michael is a spiritual teacher and adventurer. In addition to his 20 years of intuitive practice, he holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and led a decade-long career in business.
Michael nowadays uses his strong spiritual and analytical foundations to provide nuanced and insightful communication in his reading and teaching spaces, and he invites you to book a reading or to attend one of his monthly Mini-Workshops.
Michael is a graduate of the Clairvoyant Training Program, Ministers in Training, the Teachers Program, One-to-One, One-to-One Mentors, and One-to-One Mentors II. He co-created Psychic Tours and is currently the Assistant Dean of the OTO Program and the Minister of Hello for CDM. He is the former Erasure Lecture Coordinator and Dean of the Men’s Teachers Program. Michael is also a practicing astrologer & tarot reader, and he writes the occasional article on Medium on a wide variety of topics.
Learn more about this amazing person in the newest MysticMag interview.
As a spiritual counselor, how do you approach helping clients who are going through a difficult time and seeking guidance? Can you provide an example of a successful case where your counseling significantly impacted someone’s life?
I work with people in all sorts of situations, from those who are doing well and looking to take a step up, and also with those who are struggling at the moment.
Does someone experiencing loss need to give themselves permission to grieve as well as to move on and seek happiness? Does someone who is processing a breakup need to allow themselves to feel sadness, anger, and perhaps relief? Does someone who is looking to transform their life need to end patterns that are keeping them from making necessary changes, and do they also need to add new habits to replace the old ones?
There are many ways to offer guidance, and focusing on how my readees can help themselves is often part of my approach.
How do you ensure ethical and responsible practices in your work as a psychic, tarot reader, and astrologer? What measures do you take to protect the privacy and emotional well-being of your clients during sessions?
For me, acknowledging the seniority and autonomy of the person I am working with is key… I do not have that person’s answers, and I am not telling them what to do nor what their experiences will be. What I am doing in my readings is sharing perspectives with the intention that they help my readees find their answers for themselves.
This is what I enjoy about teaching and using psychic tools: I am sharing ways for people to see their own truths without telling them what those truths are.
As for privacy, I don’t share the names of people who work with me, and readings are only recorded if the readee requests it.
Meditation coaching is essential for enhancing mindfulness and inner peace. How do you customize meditation techniques to meet the unique needs and goals of each client? Can you share a specific meditation strategy you’ve used successfully with a client?
I work with folks at all levels of spiritual training and development. I generally take a few moments at the beginning of a reading to understand where someone is coming from, and I typically stop the reading every so often to check in and see how they are doing. This helps provide space to go more in-depth in certain areas and to make sure I am using language and concepts that are familiar to the readee.
My method of reading is also focused on using psychic tools and visualization techniques; how those tools are used can be customized by each person according to what works best for them.
In your experience as an astrologer, how do you approach readings and interpret astrological charts to offer valuable insights to clients? How do you avoid providing vague or generalized predictions?
My approach to astrology is to view it as a type of “astrological weather report”… I look at a chart and advise what patterns I am seeing, which allows the person receiving the reading to be more prepared while also validating their agency. I find this method to be empowering and informative, in that it allows someone to be in charge of their own path instead of telling them what their experience will be. As such, I find in my practice that I enjoy sharing broader interpretations rather than overly-specific ones.
At the same time, there tend to be patterns of human experience that fall at certain ages (e.g. the Saturn Return in the late-20s and again in the mid- to late-50s, the Uranus Opposition in the mid-40s, the Pluto and Neptune Squares of the late-30s into the 40s, and the Chiron Return around 50), and an astrology reading can help someone to see where they are in the larger cycle of their life.
Many people may be skeptical about the validity of psychic abilities. How do you address skepticism and build trust with clients who are seeking your services for the first time?
I fully support healthy skepticism, especially when it helps someone find their own truth.
Sometimes folks find me who do not typically believe in psychic phenomena, but something has happened to make them question their worldview, and I am able to offer perspectives that can shed light on their experiences.
For me, playing in spiritual realms has helped me embrace more of myself, including my analytical side. I found this integration to be healing, instead of feeling like one side had to win over the other.
My college training was as a Chemical Engineer, and I really enjoyed my math and science courses. I found it comforting that problems could have definite answers and that I could be 100% correct.
However, there were things I experienced that didn’t seem to fit into that worldview… events that couldn’t be explained rationally or with the scientific method, but which could be described within a spiritual context.
In other words, embracing psychic abilities and spiritual concepts helped me grow and make sense of my world as a balance to my more rational side (and not as a replacement). I’m still analytical and skeptical, and I also allow there to be spaces in my life that I do not have to fully understand for them to still be real to me.
It is from this personal experience of embracing both my own skepticism and my faith that I am able to say hello to others who are going through similar journeys.
As a spiritual counselor, you may encounter clients from various cultural backgrounds and belief systems. How do you ensure your guidance and advice are respectful and inclusive of their individual beliefs and values? Can you share an experience where cultural sensitivity played a crucial role in your counseling?
Working with people all over the world provides opportunities to see both the commonalities of the human spiritual experience and to constantly be introduced to myriad variations of individual expression.
Part of how I honor those differences is to read from a place of neutrality and to communicate spirit-to-spirit as well as verbally.
There is also an art to being aware of your own cultural lenses and allowing things you have never seen before to present themselves. I very much enjoy those moments in readings when I get to say, “I have no idea what I’m seeing, but it looks like this…”
Additionally, I have enjoyed traveling internationally throughout my life, which provided exposure to various cultures, spiritual expressions, and ways of living. As such, my perspective is inclusive and expansive, and I get to offer my spiritual communication from that space.
