“Everybody is psychic.” - Getting Spiritual with Psychic Medium, Katie Manning-Hilton
“How is it possible that dogs, birds, Monarch butterflies all have some inner psychic ability? They know when they need to migrate, where they need to go, know when things aren’t safe, what to do when they’re pregnant, that’s all intuition, gut instinct, psychic ability. So, if you believe in God or a higher power, why would God give that to a bird and not his own divine image?”
Katie in Ireland
Katie Manning-Hilton is a psychic medium, meaning she can see and hear the dead.
She has spent nearly two decades connecting people with their deceased loved ones and promoting the truth that we all have the inner power to heal ourselves.
“Here’s the tea, sis; I’m not unique. Everybody is psychic,” the effervescent, red-haired force of a woman states matter-of-factly through my computer screen. “I have never met a person who says they listened to their gut, and it was wrong. It’s always the other way around. Everybody gets some sort of instinct.”
And while she’s not wrong that each and every one of us is connected to a greater web of consciousness, Katie is undeniably special.
We met one evening during the fall of 2019. I was preparing for season two of the true-crime podcast, Upstate Unsolved, and Katie was recording an episode of the iHeartRadio podcast she co-hosts, Psychic on the Scene.
My colleague, and her producer D Scott, had been telling me for months that I needed to meet the show’s hosts, Katie Manning-Hilton and Michelle Lyons. He shared stories of paranormal encounters and inexplicable circumstances he experienced while working with the two women.
I was less than a year out of an evangelical church and wanted no part in any of that.
I was petrified that the teachings of Pentecostalism might be true, and becoming involved in that world would condemn me to hell. And, while outwardly I looked like I was living my #bestlife, there was a well of hurt bubbling under the surface. I feared they would take one look at me, and see right through my carefully crafted façade.
Thankfully, the Universe had other plans.
Katie and I met in the hallway outside of the production studio I worked in, her warm and welcoming energy palpable.
D introduced us, and after exchanging pleasantries, she enthusiastically started to talk about cold cases, and the work she did assisting local police investigations. She then brought up a case that fascinated her: Catherine Blackburn.
My heart dropped, and goosebumps rippled over my arms as I held up the papers I was holding and said, “That’s one of the cases we’re covering this season. These are notes about Catherine’s case right here.”
Katie, Michelle and D
Regardless of my preconceived notions of psychics, mediums, and spiritual practices, it was hard to ignore the synchronicity of our meeting.
Three years after our brief conversation in the hallway of iHeartRadio, Katie gave me my first reading, passing along messages from my late grandmother, providing glimpses into my future, reassuring me of my path, and encouraging me to keep writing.
“Write, write, write, whatever you do, don’t stop writing,” she emphasized.
It was her guidance that pushed me to start this blog, and I knew I needed to share her story.
We met virtually on a Saturday morning in February, and, as anticipated, the hour and fifteen-minute conversation was soul-renewing. Katie has a way of helping you tap into the best version of yourself, leaving you feeling inspired and empowered.
And although she was the one being interviewed, her abilities are always there, which manifested several times throughout our discussion.
“Is it hard for you to have a normal conversation? To speak to someone and not have your intuition and spirits wanting to come in?” I asked
“I grew up with this, I've had this since I was three years old, so it's a natural working muscle for me, to see and hear things around people,” Katie explains.
“There are times you get exhausted because the person that you're sitting with, their energy alone is exhausting. So you're not just reading their family, you’re feeling their energy.”
As a psychic medium, the simple act of going to dinner takes preparation.
“When we go to restaurants, if it’s too chaotic,” she starts, “it’s not just the cacophony of the sounds of the restaurant, it’s the sounds of feelings, dynamics. You could have a table next to you, and they’re fighting, and you can actually feel it in you.”
When walking into a room, Katie has to assesss her surroundings.
“You know in the movie Sherlock Holmes, he does a rewind in his head of what’s going to happen? I kind of do that. Mentally, I assess everybody, every table, and the chaos in the room. Even if I can't hear what they’re saying, there is a chatter, a sound, and that’s accompanied by a feeling. Once I get my bearings, I might see their family member and kind of do an internal, ‘Hey, I see you there,’ but I don’t have to address it.”
However, there are times when a spirit makes it known that Katie needs to pass along a message. Her friends and family recognize the specific look on her face when she hears a spirit talking—her gaze going distant, as she looks around the room, trying to decipher what person the spirit’s voice is connected to.
“I'd [be in the hair salon and] have foils in my hair, and I'd walk over to total strangers and go, ‘Uh, listen, your mom just came in. She wants you to know you made the right decisions.’ And the person would be like, ‘What? Who, who are you?’” she laughs.
“And I would talk to them for like five minutes, then everything in me would go, ‘Ahh,’ I could relax. So once I delivered the message, it wasn't mine anymore.”
Tending to her meditation practice is crucial to living a fulfilling life with her gifts, allowing Katie to remain in her “bubble.”
“It’s almost like putting armor on, and I learned that early on,” she explains, recognizing the need for meditation as she got older and started to see more of the dead.
As her gifts expanded, she also discovered that she receives an influx of information when she touches someone.
Katie and family
“Somebody can have one façade, and when I touch them, it goes through that bubble, and I literally get a download,” Katie says, likening the hidden energies we all carry to that of the virtual back door of a computer.
“People who are really good at IT can go through the back door of a computer and figure it out; that’s the same way with my psychic ability,” she continues.
“So that thing with the bubble, I have to work on that, to make sure things don’t cling to me. That I’m not bringing people home with me—their emotions, their data. And you can get that from a location too. You could go to a place where a horrific crime happened, and you come home, and you almost have to be alone for a bit—to clear it out. Because you feel it.”
Faith has always played an integral role in Katie’s life, growing up in an Irish-Catholic household in Rotterdam, NY.
“I have always had a great and deep relationship with God and heaven, especially the blessed mother,” she states. “As I got older, I learned more about other religions because I have a real interest in how other people practice their faith.”
I knew this about Katie, and wondered how her family and church community felt about her gifts.
“My parents never made me feel conflicted,” she explains.
Katie and family
“My mother always said, ‘You need to make sure that people know you’re not somebody that conjures.’ I'm not conjuring demonic spirits. I'm not conjuring evil spirits or bad things. I'm literally just doing my thing, and your family shows up. They're trying from their point of view to make contact and let their family know they're okay.”
Katie’s father, whom she describes as a “very faith-based person,” was always a little scared of her gifts.
“But he was never scared of me,” she says. “And now, because of the work I've done, working on cases, he's even said, ‘Nothing you do is evil.’ It’s all about healing, helping people heal from grief in some small amount.”
And she’s found that most people of faith don’t have any issues with her work, unless they strictly adhere to evangelical teachings.
“The second I say what I do for a living, they literally–physically and emotionally–they turn. So whatever their fear is about it, they don't want to touch me. They don't want to be near me.” Katie explains.
“I respect it,” she says, understanding that everyone’s level of comfortability on spiritual matters is their own.
I know firsthand the respectful way that Katie interacts with people who are apprehensive. And energetically, she can feel the difference between someone who is open and someone who isn’t.
“You almost read like a different person, but it's probably the Phoebe you always should have been,” she remembers. “When I first met you, and now I know why, I can remember feeling you putting up walls.”
But more than that, she says I was living in survival mode, “So, giving any extra energy or attention to anything outside of what you had to focus on was laborious, exhausting. And you don't feel like that now. Now you're kind of like, ‘I'm really open, open to other people, I'm open to life.’ You’re open to experiences because you're not in survival mode.”
Survival mode is something Katie has personal experience with, having divorced the father of her children after years of emotional abuse.
Katie and her children
She describes hearing the term “gaslighting” for the first time, a form of manipulation where an abuser misleads the victim by creating a false narrative, making them doubt their judgments and reality. A client used the term, and when Katie researched its definition, she recognized a pattern of behavior her ex-husband had practiced throughout their relationship.
So, she took back control of her life, making a vow to live authentically. But, even for a psychic medium, healing takes time.
“I can look back on pictures, especially during my divorce, and nobody knew what I was going through.” she reflects.
“I didn’t make it Facebook fodder. I lost a dramatic amount of weight, which I felt like I had to; maybe it was part of a reinventing. But I look back at those pictures now, and not only do I think to myself, ‘Oh God, I’m too thin,’ but also I'm smiling in a picture, and the smile doesn't reach my eyes. It's not there. I was going through the motions.”
While her career predated her divorce, she threw herself into her work when her marriage dissolved. “It was a way for me to heal by not focusing on my own bullshit,” she explains.
“I literally could go, ‘You think you got it bad? Look at this over here. So, get over being a martyr or feeling bad for yourself, just buckle up and do it.’ Now I realize, almost like in a flashback kind of mode, wow, that was rough.”
Now, she’s found an equilibrium, cultivating a balance in her life she didn’t know was missing.
“I had zero balance; I was a workaholic,” she remembers. “And now, I’m so relaxed. I’m so free, everyone is good, it’s like a switch went off overnight,” which Katie largely credits to meeting her fiancé Jimmy during the pandemic.
“I had a separation from the world because of the pandemic. I couldn't be ‘Katie on the spot.’ I couldn't be ‘Katie driving to Connecticut then going to Kinderhook.’ I had to sit with myself and, for me, I’m actually grateful for that pause.”
Katie and Jimmy now live in Florida, and the majority of her readings take place virtually, using pictures of her client’s loved ones and the vibration of their voice to connect with the spirit world.
Phone readings have been a part of Katie’s skillset for years, having read for the cast and crew of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition when they filmed in Colonie during the 2011 season. “When they all went back to California, I started doing phone readings for them,” she says.
Her ability to give accurate and impactful readings virtually has also served the public. Throughout the years, Katie has worked extensively with law enforcement agencies, both in-person and via the phone, helping to solve murder and missing persons cases.
“They may email me a photo, but most of the time, it was just like this, talking, and I would tell them what I was seeing,” she explains, describing her calls with the FBI in Quantico, Virginia and local agencies.
Providing insight to law enforcement is how Katie feels she can give back to the world; she doesn’t charge for any services connected to an investigation.
“I just feel like that's my give back for having this gift,” she says, “I want to contribute my soul to the universe and their families.”
And it was that willingness to contribute to the greater good that launched her career as a professional psychic.
In 2005, she started receiving information on a case in Scotia, NY.
“It wouldn’t leave me; I kept seeing the visions. I kept seeing where the person was,” she remembers. “This young man kept telling me things, and he wasn’t going away.”
When she told her parents what she was seeing, they urged her to contact the police.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’re going to think I’m crazy,’” she recalls. But, despite her insecurity, she called family friends with the Rotterdam police and told them the information she was seeing.
“They called me in less than an hour, and they were standing in the spot that I had led them to,” she says. The area she kept seeing was the victim’s last known location, something she couldn’t have known if it weren’t for the visions she was receiving.
She wound up working with the Sheriff’s Department on the case, and within a short time, other police departments began calling. “They started contacting me at my day job, and then their family members began calling my work number and saying, ‘Are you the psychic?’”
On October 13, 2006, Katie officially started working full-time as a psychic. “I was booked out almost immediately for six months–and that was seven days a week. Remember that thing I said about not having balance?” she laughs.
Katie on the cover of Klearly magazine, Katie at her sold-out show at Rivers Casino
But, her hard work hasn’t been in vain. For nearly 20 years, she’s worked countless investigations, provided personal insight to thousands of people, held group readings at sold-out venues, guest-starred on radio and television shows, and for three years, has co-hosted iHeartRadio’s Psychic on the Scene.
And she’s just getting started.
But the days of operating from a state of “go, go, go” no longer serve Katie. She has leaned into the flow of life, enjoying her days with her fiancé, beachside in the sunshine state.
In this new chapter in the book of Katie’s life, she is paying careful attention to her energy, “I try to do my rosary on a regular basis. It helps me quiet my energy. It’s not only religious, but it’s also meditative for me,” the self-described “red-headed mermaid” says.
Throughout our interview (which I hope to soon post in its entirety), my two huskies (Nash and Nova) sat in the room with me. Toward the beginning of our discussion, Katie and I started discussing some heavy topics. Then, suddenly, Nova stood on her hind legs, kissed my cheek and started talking to me.
“Oh my God, she is precious. She’s a soul animal, for God's sake,” Katie says as Nova (unsuccessfully) attempts to crawl into my lap.
“I believe in soul animals, that they find us, that they help us. Think about this, we’re sitting here talking, she can only hear your voice, and we’re talking about emotionally triggering times, and she comes over and starts kissing and hugging you, like totally giving you love,” she remarks.
Nova’s instinct to comfort me is proof of that greater web of consciousness we all inherit when we take our first breath.
“How is it possible that dogs, birds, Monarch butterflies all have some inner psychic ability? They know when they need to migrate, where they need to go, know when things aren’t safe, what to do when they’re pregnant, that’s all intuition, gut instinct, psychic ability.” Katie details.
“So, if you believe in God or a higher power, why would God give that to a bird and not his own divine image?”
“That’s me getting preachy,” Katie says, “but I believe everybody has psychic ability.” Before I can answer, Nova appears at my side once more, and she and Nash begin to howl in agreement; as if to say, “Preach it!”
Katie is a remarkable human and has been an integral component in my spiritual growth, helping me understand the truth that I really can heal myself.
So, if you’re at a point in your journey where you need a little help, or are curious to dig deeper, find Katie on Facebook, visit her website, and make an appointment for a reading.
She will help you get back to you.
After all, your relationship with yourself is the most important one you will ever have. ✨
