Aside from your Higher Self, the other source of information I typically receive my guidance from in my psychic readings is your spirit team, or ‘guides’. This happens partly because that’s my intention and partly because that’s their job, to help support you on your journey through life.
How I know it’s your guides is that it feels different to your Higher Self. It feels more like a supportive group speaking to me through non-verbal or sometimes verbal cues through the airwaves. Sometimes I’ll get something more visceral, as well. I might physically feel a guide pulling on my arm, for example, trying to get my attention, or to signal support or objection to something we’re talking about. That’s how my own intuition works. I’m not seeing faces or hearing distinct voices very often, but I do feel their presence, and also the quality or ‘mood’ of the guidance they’re offering.
When someone’s going through a really hard time, I’m always struck by how much love and support I can feel from them. I can also feel their strictness at times. A lot of my job is to translate the sentiment they’re coming with, in a way that honours your human needs and what you’re ready to hear.
Our guides are a mixed bunch as far as I’ve seen. Usually they have a human astral form – not a physical body but in the etheric realms still pretty human looking. They maybe have previously had human bodies and just aren’t incarnated right now. They may be people you’ve known from this or past lifetimes, or they may be connections you have from elsewhere in the cosmos. Some of them can take non-human forms as well, such as power animals. But mostly I feel like I’m talking to a group of wise humans who have agreed to support you, who know you, and who have your back.
Spirit Guides across the ages
The idea that you're not alone on this journey — that there's a team of non-physical beings watching over you, supporting you, actively helping you navigate — is one of the most widespread spiritual intuitions in human history. It's not a New Age invention. It's basically universal.
Shamanic traditions
The concept is most direct and most functional in shamanism. The shaman's primary relationship is with spirit helpers — non-physical beings that take any form: ancestral beings, power animals, nature spirits, plant beings, light beings, or formless presences. The form isn't the point. The relationship is. The power animal is the most well-known type — a spirit that takes the form of an animal and accompanies a person through their life, offering protection and access to specific qualities of awareness. But the full roster includes ancestors, specialised spirit helpers for specific tasks, and a major lifelong guardian. The key thing is that they're not abstract. They're individuals. They have personalities, preferences, and moods. They can be strict. They can move your body and influence your world in all kinds of ways that you didn’t ‘do’. That’s what makes them more ‘real’ than a figment of the imagination.
Ancient Greece and Rome
The Greeks had the daimon — a spirit being that occupied a middle position between gods and humans. Socrates described his daimonion as an inner voice that gave him warning signs — never telling him what to do, only telling him not to do something. The Romans had the genius — the personal spirit assigned to each individual at birth, the point at which the individual's divine nature expressed itself in the material world. When the Romans said "your genius," they meant something very close to what I mean by "your guides." For me, that feels more like a personal guide you would have for yourself, rather than a being I would connect with on your behalf though.
Christianity
The guardian angel — every individual soul assigned a protector, a guide, a companion. But the angel is sent by God. It's not a free agent. It's more like a bodyguard than a friend. And it's singular, not a team. That said, the broader mystical tradition is more generous. The communion of saints — the idea that all the saints, angels, and departed righteous are in a living relationship with the faithful, and can intercede on their behalf — is effectively a spirit team. You've got the whole church, dead and alive, in relationship with you. I feel like I’m tapping into this occasionally with people, depending on what their spiritual background is – in this life or from others.
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism has a whole infrastructure of guiding presences. The dharma protectors are beings whose specific role is to protect the teachings and the practitioners — ranging from sublime emanations of buddhas to fierce spirits bound under oath by great practitioners. They're not all nice. Palden Lhamo, the main protector of the Gelug tradition, is depicted as a fierce woman riding a mule. The bodhisattvas are the compassionate guides — beings who have attained a high level of enlightenment but chosen not to enter nirvana, instead vowing to return and help all sentient beings. And the guru is understood not just as a human teacher but as the living embodiment of the dharma — a guide in the most direct, personal sense.
Hinduism
Hinduism has the pitris (ancestral spirits, still present and still involved in your life), the devas (divine beings who govern specific aspects of reality — fire, wind, the planets — more like cosmic administrators than gods), and the dharma protector (the being or force that protects the path of righteousness and, by extension, the practitioner walking it).
Sufism
The sufis have the murshid — the spiritual guide who "makes you see" — a human being understood to be operating as a channel for divine guidance. The relationship is intimate, personal, and lifelong. There's also the angel of the heart (malak al-qalb), the being that mediates between the human and the divine at the level of the spiritual heart.
Kabbalah
Meanwhile Jewish mysticism maps a dense angelic hierarchy onto the Tree of Life — each sephirah has its own archangel and its own host. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the neshamah (the highest soul layer) is connected to a specific angelic presence that guides the individual, and part of the work of tikkun is to re-establish that connection.
Theosophy
This is where the modern concept gets its most developed cosmological framework. Blavatsky described a vast spiritual hierarchy — a structure of evolved beings who guide planetary evolution. The Masters, the Mahatmas, the Great White Brotherhood (a term referring not to race but to the purified nature of their consciousness). They're advanced human souls who have transcended ordinary limitations through spiritual evolution spanning many lifetimes. The key thing is that it's structured. It's not a random collection of helpful ghosts. It's an organised system of guidance, with different levels of beings operating at different levels. The Theosophical framework also introduced the astral body — the subtle form a being takes on the astral plane. This is closest to what I actually experience.
Spiritualism (19th century)
This is where the modern concept of "spirit guides" crystallised into its current form. The movement, which began in 1848 with the Fox Sisters, was the first mass movement in the West to systematically explore communication with non-physical beings. The key development was the shift from general spirit communication to the specific idea of "assigned" helpers — specific, named, personal guides with names, personalities, and specific functions. The guides you work with are the ones that are at the right level for you, at the right time, for the right purpose. The Spiritualist movement was also the first to systematise the experience of working with guides – typically similiar to my own.
The Golden Dawn / Thelema
Finally, Western Magick systematised the concept of planetary spirits — the intelligences associated with each of the seven classical planets, and elementals. The Holy Guardian Angel is the most personal of these — your specific point of contact with the divine. But the HGA is also part of a larger system. The planetary spirits, the archangels, the elemental forces — they're all part of the same guiding infrastructure.
Modern New Age / Core Shamanism
Our contemporary spiritual culture has synthesised all of the above into a relatively accessible framework. The "spirit team" is a standard concept. It typically includes power animals, ancestors, ascended masters, angel guides, and elemental beings. The key thing is that it's plural. You don't just have one guide. You have a team. And the team is specific to you. It's not a generic spiritual support system. It's your team.
What I actually work with
For a quick reading I typically don’t worry about who’s who. I just feel the broad presence of the group, who seem to communicate with a general consensus on what they’d advise for you, and I translate that. It usually doesn’t need more, although sometimes I’ll get a sense of a particular guide who wants to come forward to help with an aspect of your life. A guide who specialises in commerce, for example. Or maybe one who can help you tap into your creativity. If that comes through I can help to convey that, and that also helps you connect with them on your own.
In my own life, my guides have been invaluable in terms of helping get me out of trouble and show me the right way to go. I often feel when they’re stepping in to say ‘get out of there’, or showing me a new place I can move to, or sharing a download that helps me plan my next step. And also, sometimes, honestly, it can be a little confusing and frustrating working with them, particularly when working with them on an individual basis. They might be there to help me, but I might have different ideas, and then I can get confused about what to follow. I have to remind myself that they’re ‘guides’, not dictators. I still get to choose what I do. And that’s what I always remind people of in readings as well.
