Susan "Spooky" Schueler Moves From Teaching High School to Channeling The Afterlife

Susan "Spooky" Schueler, 51, taught high school English at Culver City High. But in 2015 she left the public education system in order to become a professional psychic medium. While a psychic involves herself in a soul to soul connection with people in order to help them with life issues, a medium connects people to their loved ones on the other side, according Schueler. All mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums. She is both psychic and medium and always has been. Even before the age of six, Schueler had known she could communicate with Spirits. "It is something some are born with."

Though birth may deliver the necessary talent, some education in the art is required. Schueler studied at Arthur Findlay College in England, which has been called 'the real Hogwarts.' "I have spent more years learning to be a medium than anything else," Schueler explains. "It's way, way harder than teaching ever was."

Here are "Spooky's" answers to your questions about psychics and mediums.

Why do people become psychics?

For a lot of us, there's something about how we're wired.  We're just healers!

Why do people visit psychics? 

People visit psychics because they have questions about career, love and health. Those are the three big things.  Men want to know more about their careers, or they have money questions. 

Young women typically want to know about romance. Older women often want insight into their childrens' lives.  However, even some older women may be interested in romance. I recently read for a 70-year-old woman who asked me about this subject.

Why do people visit mediums?

People come to see mediums for closure, healing, and sometimes even help in the here and now.  I read for a woman last week who lost a friend who she had known since college.  When the deceased friend, a mother of five, came through during the reading, she asked my client to do specific things pertaining to helping her living children and the husband she'd left behind.  Some people just need closure to heal.  I did a mediumship reading for the family of a young women who died after sitting in a hot tub all night and drinking too much with friends; there's no rhyme or reason for that to occur.  Loved ones come to see me to find out why their loved one was taken and to make sure they are OK on the other side.  It gives them a special kind of peace of mind to know they still live on, even though it may not be in the same way.

How do Mediums work, and can they really contact the dead?

Yes we can speak with the dead!  Mediums form a direct link from the person they sit with to the Spirit world.  As a medium, I raise my vibration while the Spirit world lowers theirs, allowing us to meet somewhere in the middle.  They use my psychic abilities of seeing, knowing, hearing, and feeling (clairvoyance, claircognizance, clairaudience, and clairsentience) to get information that can not be obtained through the normal five senses.  Since the information gets filtered through the medium (me), it is not a perfect form of communication because they use my frame of reference to help me better understand them.  (I am an evidential medium, which means I need to give specific evidence about the Spirit's personality and memories to prove that I am communicating with them.)  If I am reading for someone and their grandmother comes through, she may remind me of things from my own life to help me understand what she is trying to convey about her own.

I've trained with some of the world's greatest psychic mediums, from America's own James Van Prague to the fine British mediums Lisa Williams, Tony Stockwell,  Paul Jacobs and Mavis Pittilla.  Most of these people are also tutors at Arthur Findlay College in England and also teach around the world.

How do you manage to read people, either living or dead?

I am exceptionally clairsentient, which means I can physically feel things to give me information during a reading.  If I am reading for someone who died of a heart attack, I might feel pain in my chest, or if someone is dehydrated, I may feel thirsty.  This happens when I am doing psychic readings with a person and they are living, or if I am doing mediumship readings and communicating with a Spirit person on the other side.  It took me awhile to figure out what was actually mine verses theirs, and very confusing until I did.

My husband is very supportive.  He finally talked me into leaving teaching because he saw how hard I was working to do both, and frankly it was taking its toll on me.  He doesn't understand what I do and won't go to my events, but he jokingly says I am not a liar and leaves it at that.  I personally think it makes him feel a little better to not think about it too much.

Why did you become a medium?

For me the catalyst that really pushed me into it was the death of my niece.  Mediumship picks you, you don't pick it.  It's too hard!  

What is your background?

I am from a small suburb outside of Buffalo NY.  I did my BA at New York's Niagara University and graduate work at Buffalo State College and The University of New York at Buffalo.

I was a teacher at Culver City High School from 1998 to 2015.  Schools don't teach spiritual development, though Culver City was unusually open to new ideas. It's a spiritually diverse school, with people from almost every religion.  So I could openly talk there about being a medium. Because I'm a teacher, I felt I needed to take this gift and learn it as well as I could

I have been a full-time medium for the two last years.  My clients are from all over the world. I do small group readings, face-to-face readings, and two weekly radio shows with live on-the-air readings. I do a lot of larger demonstrations and even some charity events.  I recently did one at a homeless center in South Central. You'd be surprised how well trained and serious the mediums are in LA.  It drives me crazy to hear how some charlatan psychics say a person is cursed, and that if you pay the fake psychic a large amount of money, they will release your curse. It does NOT work that way and don't believe them!

How did you train as a medium?

I have been trained the British way of being an evidential medium.  Mediums form a direct link to the Spirit world, whereas a psychic connection is only soul to soul, from one living person to another.  Many of the psychics out there today do NOT understand the difference.  I have spent more time and money learning to be a better psychic medium than I did to get my BA and MA, and continue to study extensively at Arthur Findlay College in England and with many of their visiting tutors from that college.

What is the afterlife like?

When spirits come through, they tell me more than things about their lives. They tell me what they're doing.  A lot of them are writers who work with writers on the other side. You don't just go to the other side and float around.  You're busy, you're working. You don't just cross over to the other side and you know all. And you keep your personality. If you were bad with money in this life, I would not listen to financial advice from you from the afterworld.

Let me give you an example.  My 18-year-old niece was killed in a horrible traffic accident by a drunk driver.  Now, in the Spirit realm, she works with little kids who died young and crossed over.  

Other people have showed up in a cocktail party where they're working the room.  It's busy on the other side!  They are not just floating around in the ether.

What should a potential client look for in a psychic?  

First ask how they have trained. No psychic medium can read for everyone; sometimes the connection just cannot be made.  It doesn't happen often, but it can happen, so go to see a psychic medium whom you feel drawn to, or feel a connection.  

If they have a photo and a website (which they should) look at the photo and see if you connect to them.  Spirit will lead you in the right direction if you let them.

Also, most of the good psychic mediums are listed on Yelp.  Go there and look at reviews other clients have left so you can get a good feel for the person.

Everyone is born with psychic abilities, anyone can learn how to tap into the unseen world. That's why some people label it intuition or common sense.

What last words would you like to give us?

I never am afraid of the spirit world.  I'm scared of people - Okay, not that much, but more than I am of life after death.

Schueler engages in weekly spiritual services at the Gateway Portal, Gateway and So. Barrington at 10 am the second Saturday of every month.  This is a lovely healing service of community and several mediums give audience readings.  She may be contacted through her website, which is www.MediumSusan.com