Are Spiritual Readings a Sin?

I grew up Catholic. My family is from Portugal, where faith is not something you set aside for Sunday morning. It is woven into how people cook, grieve, celebrate, and talk about the people they have lost. I still go to Mass, and I still feel something real there. That part of my life has never gone away.

So when I first started noticing my own intuitive gifts, the first feeling was not guilt. It was curiosity. I did not feel like talking to God, to Mary, or to Jesus was ever going to send me somewhere terrible. That never sat right with me, even though I know plenty of people in my own community would say otherwise.

The more I sat with it, the more I began to notice that some of what I had been taught felt less like something God had asked of us directly, and more like something people had built up around that relationship over time. That realization did not push me away from my faith. It actually brought me closer to it, because it helped me see that my connection with God did not have to run through anyone else to be real.

I share this because I know I am not the only one who has felt caught between a sincere faith and a sincere curiosity. If you were raised in a Christian home and you are wondering whether getting a spiritual reading might dishonor God, I understand that question more than you might expect. You are not asking because you want permission to do something wrong. You are asking because your relationship with God actually matters to you.

This article will not tell you what you must believe. It will walk through what Scripture says, where thoughtful Christians disagree, how I personally approach this work, and how you can make a decision that leaves you with peace rather than doubt.

Why So Many Christians Ask This Question

This is one of the most sincere questions I hear, and I never take it lightly.

Most people asking are not looking for a loophole. They are people who love God and want to keep that relationship intact. They may be curious about a reading, or they may have already had one, and now they are sitting with a quiet worry that they did something wrong. Some grew up hearing that anything outside of church leadership is dangerous ground. Others simply have not been given a clear answer and do not know who to trust.

There is also real disagreement among Christians themselves, which makes this harder to sort out. A person can ask their pastor, their grandmother, and a Christian friend and receive three different answers, each spoken with total confidence. That is not because any of them are being careless with their faith. It is because Christians have genuinely interpreted these questions differently for centuries.

My goal in this article is not to hand you a verdict. It is to walk through the actual Scripture, explain where the disagreement comes from, describe how I approach this work, and help you think it through in a way that leaves you at peace with your own decision.

What Does the Bible Say?

If you want to understand this question honestly, it helps to look directly at the passages most often cited, and to understand what they were addressing in context.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12. This passage lists practices forbidden among the Israelites as they entered the land of Canaan, including divination, sorcery, interpreting omens, witchcraft, casting spells, and consulting mediums or spirits of the dead. Biblical scholars generally read this passage as addressing specific occult practices tied to the surrounding pagan nations, practices that often involved manipulating spiritual forces, invoking other gods, or claiming to control the future. The concern at the center of this passage is Israel’s loyalty to God alone, not curiosity or reflection in general.

Leviticus 19:31. This verse warns the Israelites not to turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, describing this as something that defiles a person. Like the Deuteronomy passage, this instruction sits within a broader legal and covenantal context aimed at protecting Israel’s exclusive worship of God amid neighboring cultures that practiced ritual necromancy and spirit consultation.

1 Samuel 28. This is the story of King Saul, who disobeyed God’s law by seeking out the medium of Endor to summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Many scholars point to this passage as a cautionary account, not primarily about the reading itself, but about Saul’s broader pattern of disobedience and his choice to seek guidance outside of God after God had already stopped answering him through proper channels. It is often read as an example of desperation replacing faith, rather than a general statement about every form of spiritual inquiry.

Acts 16:16-18. In this account, Paul encounters a slave girl who earned money for her owners through what the text describes as a spirit of divination. Paul casts out the spirit, and the passage is often cited as evidence that early Christians viewed certain spiritual practices as connected to harmful or deceptive spiritual forces rather than genuine gifts from God.

Isaiah 8:19. Here, the prophet asks why people would consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, rather than seeking guidance from God. This passage is frequently cited to reinforce the idea that God’s people are meant to seek Him directly rather than looking for hidden knowledge elsewhere.

Why Some Christians Believe Spiritual Readings Are Sinful

Many Christians, particularly within more conservative evangelical and Reformed traditions, read the passages above as a clear and comprehensive prohibition. From this view, any practice that seeks hidden knowledge outside of God, including tarot, psychic readings, mediumship, and some forms of spiritual readings, falls under the same category as the divination condemned in Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

The underlying concern is not petty rule keeping. It comes from a real desire to protect a person’s trust in God as the sole source of guidance and truth. From this perspective, seeking answers from any source other than God, prayer, and Scripture risks displacing God’s authority in a person’s life, and it may open the door to spiritual influences that are not from Him.

Historically, this interpretation is reinforced by centuries of church teaching that treated occult practices, fortune telling, and spirit consultation as spiritually dangerous, sometimes explicitly forbidden in church doctrine. For someone raised within this tradition, avoiding spiritual readings entirely is often less about fear and more about a sincere desire to remain faithful.

I want to be clear that I deeply respect this position. It comes from people who take their faith seriously and want to honor God with their choices. If this is where your conscience leads you, that is a completely valid place to land.

Why Other Christians View Spiritual Readings Differently

Other Christians, including many within Catholic, Anglican, charismatic, and Pentecostal traditions, approach this question with a different lens, often rooted in a belief in ongoing spiritual gifts.

1 Corinthians 12 describes a range of spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit, including wisdom, knowledge, discernment of spirits, and prophecy. Christians who hold this view often distinguish between divination, which they understand as attempting to manipulate or summon spiritual power outside of God, and discernment, which they understand as a Spirit given ability to perceive truth, encourage others, and offer insight in a way that remains under God’s authority rather than replacing it.

From this perspective, the concern is not whether a person receives insight through prayerful reflection or a heightened intuitive sense. The concern is where that insight is understood to come from, and whether the practice honors God or attempts to bypass Him.

Many Christians who hold this view also point to a long history within their own traditions of spiritual experience outside formal church structures, including personal visions, a strong sense of God’s presence, and moments of clarity that felt like direct spiritual communication. For these Christians, a respectful, prayerful spiritual reading does not necessarily conflict with their faith. It depends heavily on how the reading is approached and what it claims to offer.

The Difference Between Divination and How I Practice Spiritual Readings

This is the part I think matters most, because so much of the fear around this topic comes from picturing something very different from what I actually do.

Divination, in the sense most often condemned in Scripture, generally involves attempting to summon spirits, manipulate unseen forces, or extract guaranteed knowledge of the future through ritual or occult practice. That is not what happens in my sessions, and I want to be direct about that.

• ✦I pray before I begin a session, when that feels appropriate for the client.
• ✦I quiet my mind rather than performing a ritual or invoking any spirit.
• ✦I ask to receive information that may be helpful, not to command or control anything.
• ✦I never attempt to summon spirits or communicate with the dead.
• ✦I never claim absolute certainty about what I share.
• ✦I never predict lottery numbers or make guarantees about specific future events.
• ✦I never tell a client what God wants them to do. That is between them and God.
• ✦I never position a reading as a replacement for prayer or Scripture.
• ✦I never position a reading as a replacement for therapy, medical care, legal advice, or financial advice.

I share information the way I would share an observation with a friend, openly, without pressure, and without insisting it must be accepted as absolute truth. If something I share does not resonate with you, you are always free to set it aside. That freedom is not an afterthought in how I work. It is central to it.

My Promise to Every Client

I want to state this plainly, because I think it matters more than anything else in this article.

If you decide, after reading this article and reflecting honestly, that a spiritual reading does not align with your faith, I respect that completely. That decision does not need my approval, and it certainly does not need to be defended to anyone.

Questions I Encourage Every Client to Consider

Before booking a session, or before deciding this is not for you, I think it helps to sit with a few honest questions rather than trying to resolve the whole topic in the abstract.

• ✦Does this bring me a sense of peace, or does it stir up anxiety and fear?
• ✦Does it encourage love, compassion, and hope, or does it lead toward manipulation or control?
• ✦Does this align with my personal values and my understanding of my faith?
• ✦Does this strengthen my relationship with God, or does it feel like it is pulling me away from it?
• ✦Am I seeking wisdom and reflection, or am I seeking certainty and control over outcomes?
• ✦Am I using this to replace prayer, or alongside a prayer life that remains central to me?

There are no required answers here. These questions are simply meant to help you notice what your own conscience is telling you.

Can Spiritual Readings Replace Prayer?

No. I want to be completely direct about this.

Prayer is personal. It is the most direct form of communication between you and God, and nothing I offer is meant to stand in for that relationship. A spiritual reading, as I practice it, is a conversation and a moment of reflection. It is not a substitute for your own relationship with God, your own reading of Scripture, or your own spiritual practice.

If anything, I encourage clients to bring prayer into the process itself, before a session, during it if that feels right, and afterward as they reflect on what came up. A reading should never be the final word on anything important in your life. That role belongs to God, and to the discernment you build through your own faith and relationship with Him.

What Happens During One of My Spiritual Readings?

If you are wondering what an actual session looks like, here is the honest walkthrough, without embellishment.

• ✦Beginning. We start with conversation. I want to understand what brought you in and what you are hoping to explore.
• ✦Prayer, if appropriate. If it feels right for you, we can begin with a moment of prayer or quiet centering.
• ✦Quieting the mind. I take a few moments to settle into a calm, focused state, similar to how someone might approach meditation.
• ✦Receiving impressions. I share images, words, feelings, or impressions as they come, without inserting my own opinions or agenda.
• ✦Sharing information. I describe what I am noticing clearly and without pressure, always leaving room for you to accept or set aside what is shared.
• ✦Checking what resonates. I ask you directly what feels true and what does not. Your response matters more than my impression.
• ✦Discussion. We talk through what came up and how it connects to what is actually happening in your life.
• ✦Reflection and integration. We close by talking about what, if anything, feels useful to carry forward.

A Story: Praying Beforehand

To make this more concrete, here is a composite story, not a real client, drawn from patterns I have seen over the years.

Imagine a woman named Teresa, raised Catholic, still active in her parish, who reached out feeling nervous and a little guilty for even considering a session. She told me during our first conversation that she had prayed about it for weeks before booking, and she still was not entirely sure it was the right decision.

Before we began, she asked if we could take a moment of prayer together, and we did. She was not looking for a prediction. She had been struggling with a decision about whether to leave a job that paid well but left her feeling empty, and she wanted a space to think it through honestly.

During the session, nothing dramatic happened. There were no visions, no supernatural moment, no message claiming to come directly from God. What she described afterward was simpler than that. She said the conversation helped her hear her own thoughts more clearly, and that something about naming her fear out loud made the decision feel less overwhelming.

She left the session the same devoted Catholic woman she had been walking in. Nothing about her faith had changed. What had shifted was a little more clarity and a little less fear about a decision she already knew, deep down, she needed to make.

What My Spiritual Readings Are Not

Should You Get a Spiritual Reading?

I am not going to answer that for you, and I would not trust anyone who claims they can answer it for you either.

What I can offer instead is a few honest starting points.

Whatever conclusion you reach, I encourage you to bring it to prayer, sit with Scripture if that is meaningful to you, and trust your own conscience. That decision belongs to you and to God, not to me, and not to anyone else weighing in from the outside.

My Personal Philosophy

I do not practice this work in spite of my faith. I practice it as someone who still goes to Mass, who still prays, and who still feels genuinely connected to the Catholic community I grew up in.

Over time, I came to understand that some of what I had been taught growing up felt less like something God had asked directly, and more like something that had been built up around that relationship by people, over centuries, with good intentions and sometimes mixed motives. Recognizing that distinction did not damage my faith. It clarified it. It helped me understand that my relationship with God did not need to be mediated by anyone else to be real, and that the same is true for every person, regardless of what tradition they come from.

I believe every person has the ability to pray, to seek God directly, and to develop their own understanding through that relationship. I do not believe my role is to replace that process for anyone. My role is to offer a space for reflection, and to trust each client to carry that reflection back into their own faith, their own conscience, and their own relationship with God.

I respect every person’s beliefs, including the belief that this work is not for them. I never pressure anyone toward my own perspective. My goal has never been to replace anyone’s faith. It has always been to support honest reflection, wherever that reflection leads.

A Final Word

Whether or not you choose to have a spiritual reading is ultimately a personal decision. If your faith is important to you, and I suspect it is, since you have read this far, I encourage you to pray about it, reflect honestly on Scripture, and move forward only if you feel real peace about your decision.

Whatever you choose, I hope this article has helped you understand the different perspectives more clearly, along with how I personally approach this work. If, after reflection, a session feels aligned with your beliefs, I would be glad to talk with you about what that might look like. You may also want to explore what a spiritual reading is, how spiritual readings work, or spiritual healing hypnosis as related paths some clients explore alongside this work.

Frequently Asked Questions

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This article reflects general theological perspectives for informational and reflective purposes and is not a statement of official church doctrine for any denomination. Please consult your own pastor, priest, spiritual director, or church leadership for guidance specific to your faith tradition. Services at Intuitive Clarity Hypnosis are complementary and are not a substitute for licensed medical, mental health, legal, or financial care, nor for your own faith practice. Read full disclaimer.