Mediumship: Sacred Communications with Loved Ones from Across the Veil – An Interview with Suzanne Giesemann

Is there more to life than what we see?

Join Suzanne Giesemann, a former Navy officer turned spiritual teacher, as she shares her incredible journey of awakening. From flying on Air Force One to navigating the aftermath of 9/11 and her stepdaughter’s death, Suzanne’s life took an unexpected turn toward understanding life beyond death and the profound power of mediumship.

Suzanne reveals how spirit communication isn’t just mystical—it’s rooted in verifiable experiences. You’ll hear how mediumship transcends religious boundaries, offering comfort, connection, and a new perspective on the continuity of life…or what Suzanne calls the “everlife.”

We also dive into her new book entitled Mediumship: Sacred Communications with Loved Ones from Across the Veil – the latest in the Common Sentience series by Sacred Stories. Suzanne’s touching stories reveal the healing potential of these connections, bringing comfort to grieving families and opening hearts to deeper spiritual truths. Let’s explore what it truly means to awaken!

If someone is struggling with the loss of a loved one, what encouragement would you give them today?

Suzanne Giesemann: Not just encouragement, how about the guarantee that death is not the end? How about the absolute certainty that comes from connecting with thousands of people who once walked in a body and are now what we think are dead, with verifiable evidence that shows they’re still right here? I know this for a fact, and I know that my background helps people to trust that.

Can you share your story of awakening to spirituality and consciousness? Did you grow up with any faith or spirituality in your life?

Suzanne Giesemann: Nothing. I don’t understand why my parents were anti-religion, but it wasn’t part of our life growing up. They sometimes openly disdained religion. I try not to let that affect me, but it wasn’t part of my life growing up. I had no idea there was a greater reality or that I would work as a medium and spiritual teacher, writing books about it. That was far from my thoughts about my future.

My focus was joining the military. Having a much older brother who joined the Air Force when I was five, I thought, that’s for me, what a great lifestyle and an excellent way to be of service. I went to college and straight to Navy officer candidate school. I got my commission and served the traditional Navy officer’s way of life, working up the ranks. The ultimate goal was to be a commanding officer.

I joined before women were allowed on most ships, so I served ashore in nine different tours of duty. Ultimately, I commanded a shore unit and then was asked to be a special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, the head of the Navy. The greatest and most unexpected honor was when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Special Forces Army Officer and head of the entire U.S. military, asked me to be his aide-de-camp, his right-hand man. It was a thrilling final tour of duty, flying on Air Force One and meeting kings and queens.

Suzanne at the Pentagon

For people who don’t know what that role entails, can you break it down for us a little in terms of the timeline and what you did?

Suzanne Giesemann: The aide’s job is to make sure your boss looks good, is where he needs to be, on time, in the right uniform, and has everything he needs so he doesn’t have to think about those things. His principal job was advisor to the president, ensuring he represented the country well. It was thrilling.

We flew around the world, met world leaders, and I met six Presidents. I flew on Air Force One with George Bush Jr., and being in the conference room on the aircraft with the Secretary of Defense, his assistant, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and me was surreal, as was standing there and conversing with the President, because I was just a girl from a small town in Pennsylvania. In the Navy, it was all merit-based. I guess I crossed my T’s and dotted my I’s and had good attention to detail, so I was chosen personally by him for that job. But did I ever think I would one day be leading people on the spiritual path, showing people we are souls now, and teaching them to connect with loved ones who have passed? Never!

Suzanne with President George Bush on September 12, 2001

How did that unfold for you? 

Suzanne Giesemann: Unfortunately, my transition came about through two major wake-up calls. The first was September 11, 2001. I was the chairman’s aide that whole year. We were in the last aircraft in US airspace. Everyone else had been grounded. We had to decide whether to keep going to Europe, where the boss was to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth. I was going to be right there for that ceremony, but it never happened. Because he said to me, “Take us back to Washington.” I went up to the cockpit and said, “We’re going back.” The pilot said, “Commander, our flight path is going to take us right over Manhattan.” The skies were empty except for our airplane, and we flew right over the towers.

I have a picture of the billowing smoke. We went back to the Pentagon, our office building we left hours earlier, and stood there. I have a picture of me staring at this gaping hole in the side. That was the pivotal moment when I started questioning life. Why were those people in the wrong place at the wrong time? Is this life really all there is? Why do people hurt people like that? How could this happen? I turned to traditional religion, and it did not help me at all. I just couldn’t accept some things that didn’t make sense in a grander scheme. Something in me said that this isn’t speaking to my heart, so I let it go.

When they issued us gas masks to have at our desks, I decided it was time to live my dreams. I put in my retirement papers. On the 20-year mark, the day you’re eligible to retire, I did. The very next day, my husband and I got aboard our sailboat and went cruising full-time. That was our dream. We sold the house, the cars; that was our only home and transportation. It was idyllic.

But I carried a lot of trauma from 9/11 and struggled to adjust to being what felt like a nobody. After being the chairman’s aide, suddenly I was in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with my husband, with no tools to deal with the isolation and my past trauma. I didn’t understand the ego versus the soul. Now I know that our ranks, titles, and jobs are part of a story. My story caught up with me when we sailed across the ocean with our little dachshund. We were off the coast of Croatia.

In 2006, before people had cell phones on boats, we got a message through our single sideband radio: “Phone home, it’s important.” We had no phone on board. We sailed a day to find a payphone. My husband called our oldest daughter, who had sent the message. He slumped against the phone booth and said, “Not Susan!” My youngest stepdaughter, Susan, a Marine Corps sergeant, was crossing the flight line at work to report to duty when a bolt of lightning struck and killed her. She was six months pregnant with our only grandchild.

I ran away from 9/11 and others’ grief, but there was no running from this. I had no coping tools or understanding of why death happens to young people. At the funeral, seeing her body, I had an epiphany. I knew there’s something in each of us—a soul, a spirit. Susan had to still exist as that, and I was going to connect with her myself. Six weeks earlier, I found a book on mediumship by accident. It opened me to the possibility of talking to those who have passed. I thought, if mediums can connect, why can’t I? I began meditating daily that week in 2006. That process opened me to worlds and experiences I never expected.

At what point in your journey, did you feel called to serve others? 

Suzanne Giesemann: I took my husband to a medium, and it changed both of our lives. There was no doubt that Susan was in the room with us. None whatsoever.

Was this your first mediumship experience? 

Suzanne Giesemann: Yes. My husband didn’t know what a medium was. He went along because I asked him to. He said, “What are we doing? I don’t know what this is about.” The woman was astounding. I could list all the evidence about Susan that left no doubt she was in the room. She didn’t know our last name. We were not easily duped, but she wasn’t trying to dupe us. It was very real.

I ended up writing biographies of two reputable, evidence-based mediums, Anne Gehman and Janet Nohavec. I was already an author. I wanted to let people know in an interesting, entertaining way that mediumship is real, with verifiable information. Janet Nohavec taught mediumship classes. Both Anne and Janet have passed since then, but studying how she taught surprised me. I discovered that you can learn mediumship, and the spirit world will respond reliably. You ask certain things, and they’ll give them to you. That fascinated me.

I was taking notes about Janet in the back of the class when she called me to the front and said, “You can do this too, Suzanne. There’s a spirit here. Tell us what you sense.” I just closed my eyes, not realizing that two years of meditating since Susan passed allowed me to create an expanded consciousness space in my busy mind. When I heard her ask, “What do you sense?” with the belief that someone was there, I brought through evidence about one of the student’s fathers, including his nickname, habits, and how he died. That moment made me realize, if I could do for one person what that medium did for our family, I’m all in.

You use the term evidence-based mediumship. Can you define that for us and tell us why it’s important to you?

Suzanne Giesemann: It’s very important. A retired Navy commander and a Navy captain, both grieving for our daughter, went to see a woman who speaks to dead people. If she had said, “There’s a beautiful light around you, I sense an older woman with gray hair, she loves you, she’s fine, don’t worry. It’s probably your grandmother,” that would have been it. We would have never gone to see a medium again. Our left-brain minds needed verifiable information the medium couldn’t know or guess.

Messages are important but must be backed up by evidence. When a medium says, “There’s a young woman here who died suddenly, she’s in her 20s, wearing a brown uniform, and bringing a baby boy to introduce to you,” that changes lives. When I teach people to connect, we insist on evidence. The spirit world will give it to us, but we must push ourselves to get it, not be satisfied with “Oh, they love you.” We get the messages, but always backed up with facts we don’t know.

A couple of years, I went to a platform mediumship reading in Southern California at Behind the Lids. Because I grew up as a conservative Christian and ultimately became a pastor, mediumship was not something I was familiar or comfortable with. The medium began casually calling out names, birth dates, or death dates, and people were gasping. I ended up going through her mediumship training, and it caused me to believe even more in the…I hate to use the word…afterlife.

Suzanne Giesemann: Everlife is what my guides call it, the everlife. 

It caused me to believe more than when I was a Christian pastor and teaching about it all the time.

Suzanne Giesemann: May I share something? A man asked to speak to me at a conference. He said, “I’ve been a Christian pastor for 40 years at a strict evangelical church.” At first, I thought, uh oh, because most people don’t use the word satanic; they think mediumship is the devil’s work. It’s life-changing. It’s about love and shows us who we are. He said, “I recently took one of your classes.” I was surprised. Wow, that’s great. He wanted messages for his family. “We’ve had a loss or two.” He got messages with evidence, which helped us all.

He said when members of his congregation asked, “Doesn’t mediumship conflict with Christianity?” His reply was beautiful, David. He said, “Mediumship is Christianity with the walls blown out.” Let’s not put religion in a box. It’s about love, oneness, and connection. That’s why I started as a medium, but now I list spiritual teacher first on my bio. Mediumship shows what religions and spirituality are trying to tell us – we’re all connected. Our lives have purpose, and we are expressions of one God, one Source, one Spirit.

Today, I’d like to introduce your new book, Mediumship: Sacred Communications with Loved Ones from Across the Veil, the latest in the Common Sentience series by Sacred Stories. Who is this book for, and how will it benefit them?

Suzanne Giesemann: This book is not only for people who are grieving. It’s for anyone interested in who we are, why we’re here, and if we can connect with those who have passed. It’s for anyone with a fear of death or who is grieving. It’s for anyone curious about this life and what is before and beyond it.

It has a unique layout. Can you describe it and the other contributors?

Suzanne Giesemann: It’s a great layout. It’s part of the Common Sentience series, each book with a one-word title. This one is Mediumship. Other books cover spiritual topics like Akashic guides. They have the same pattern: three parts. The first part answers basics and fundamentals: what is mediumship, who can do it, how does it work, and why? 

Part two is cool: 30 contributors share their mediumship stories. Many are not the traditional mediumship I’ve studied, where a medium sits one-on-one and brings through loved ones. Most stories are personal mediumship, after-death communications, and signs from loved ones. I call them no other explanation moments (NOEs).

I contributed two traditional mediumship stories to this section. They bracket the 30 contributor stories. A woman I read for today said she keeps that book by her bed, reading one story each night. It makes her feel uplifted and connected, knowing her loved ones are with her. Part three has practices to help you open up to mediumship yourself.

When I started my mediumship training, it felt a bit like a party trick. I’m very analytical and wondered…what’s the point of this? Describing who’s showing up, maybe there’s a message or not. Then I saw people during sessions start to release pain and grief. Seeing the impact made me realize just how powerful it is.

Suzanne Giesemann: It’s no party trick. I’ve lost count of people at conferences who said my work saved their lives. My husband hears it too: people ready to kill themselves found hope, learning their loved ones are still here. We still grieve, but it changes everything.

Can you elaborate on the three main goals you outlined in the book? The first goal is to prove the continuity of consciousness beyond physical death.

Suzanne Giesemann: Yes, we think death is like sleep or anesthesia, where we’re unconscious. But mediumship shows we’re souls, always aware, not dependent on the body. The soul exists before and after our physical life. Mediums attune their consciousness to another’s energy, communicating in real-time, showing consciousness is continuous.

The second goal is to remind us who we are as souls temporarily in physical bodies. Can you elaborate? 

Suzanne Giesemann: Yes, our world feels chaotic, and people are upset. That’s our human story. Realizing we’re souls offers a higher perspective, a relief valve, finding peace amid chaos. My book, The Awakened Way: Making the Shift to a Divinely Guided Life, explores this shift to the soul’s perspective. 

The third goal is to show how interconnected the physical and non-physical worlds are.

Suzanne Giesemann: Yes, it’s not a separate place we go after death. It’s like changing channels on a network with interrelating signals. We need to learn to change the channel to connect, as we’re already interconnected.

Where are these non-physical beings we talk to?

Suzanne Giesemann: Right here. I have a book called Still Right Here. It shows that those who have passed know what’s going on in our lives. It’s not an invasion of privacy. Think of a TV set displaying a signal. There are hundreds of TV signals around us now. The brain filters that out, or we’d experience chaos. If the TV set breaks, the signal remains. Everything is energy and information perceived and transmitted through our brains. We’re all connected as consciousness. It can’t go anywhere. It’s here.

Do these non-physical beings elevate themselves when not in physical form? Are they reincarnated? How do you see that process?

Suzanne Giesemann: We all have unique frequencies or signals. Without the dense energy of the physical body, we vibrate at a higher frequency, a different channel. The soul’s pattern of energy and information encompasses more than one incarnation. The soul can play a role as you or me. Even if you or I are no longer in a body, the soul can project another incarnation and still maintain the story.

Is that on the same timeline?

Suzanne Giesemann: I see CDs stacked on top of each other. It’s simultaneous. What happens on one affects the other. Our brains freeze when talking beyond space and time, but parallel stories happen at once.

How do you address skepticism from people?

Suzanne Giesemann: I invite them to do the three E’s of awakened living: Educate yourself, experience for yourself, and engage higher consciousness. I have a full-length reading online called Actual Evidence of the Afterlife. It shows evidence, and the transformation in the people who had the reading is profound. Open-minded skepticism can lead to healing.

It seems most skeptics aren’t interested in the three E’s.

Suzanne Giesemann: That would be closed-minded skepticism. That’s their path. I’m not here to change everyone’s mind. If people are open to raising their consciousness and healing, let’s work together. Otherwise, we’re all on our own path.

You encourage us to have “adventures in consciousness”. What does it take to have those adventures, and what’s the ultimate benefit?

Suzanne Giesemann: It takes open-mindedness, curiosity, and playfulness. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and set an intention for a unique, beneficial experience. Watch how the mind works and your thoughts. If what arises is unusual, look closer.

Engage with the experience. If you see a being, interact. Ask why they’re here, who they are. In an expanded state of consciousness, validate the experience by asking for information you can verify later. These adventures can start like a party game but lead to a new way of being in the world.

If someone feels called to mediumship, I know you offer training. What would you invite them to do next?

Suzanne Giesemann: I have a live course starting December 4th with the Shift Network, and many evergreen courses. Mediumship can be learned. I’m proof you don’t need to be a born medium. We’re all born souls. This is soul-to-soul communication. Find a teacher focusing on evidence-based mediumship. My systems show how it works, why it works, and how to do it.

We’ll link to those courses. If someone’s starting their spiritual journey, is there a resource you’d recommend?

Suzanne Giesemann: The gifts page on my website. I have many resources there, including an ebook called Where Do I Begin? 

Thank you for sharing your heart, wisdom, and journey. It’s inspiring. Your experiences connecting with non-physical beings and the joy you express show we’re not alone. It’s part of the journey, a beautiful gift.

Suzanne Giesemann: I love that when you connect with Spirit daily, there’s never a shortage of new teaching, stories, and examples, and it makes this work much less work for me.