Sitting in the Power vs. Meditation: What’s the Real Difference?

Many people assume that Sitting in the Power is simply a type of meditation. While the two share surface similarities, their purpose, intention, and energetic effect are completely different.

Understanding this distinction can transform your mediumship development, expand your intuitive abilities, and strengthen your relationship with Spirit.

What Meditation Really Does: A Journey Inward

Meditation is one of the oldest and most widely practiced methods for calming the mind and regulating the nervous system. Its goal is inner stillness.

During meditation, you typically:

  • Settle into the body

  • Observe thoughts without attachment

  • Return to emotional and energetic balance

Meditation centers your energy. It grounds you and brings you into deeper harmony with your inner world.

This is wonderful for spiritual wellness, but it’s not the same as Sitting in the Power.

What Sitting in the Power Is: Expanding Into Spirit

Sitting in the Power is a mediumship-specific practice, made widely known by pioneers like Gordon Higginson.

Its intention is not relaxation—it is energetic expansion. It builds the power a medium needs to connect clearly with the Spirit world.

Where meditation draws your energy inward, sitting in the Power expands and elevates your energy outward.

In this practice, you:

  • Sit in the power of Spirit

  • Blend with the presence of the Spirit world

  • Feel the power stabilize and strengthen

Sitting in the Power is a quiet communion with Spirit—deep, subtle, and transformational. It forms the energetic backbone of clear, evidential mediumship.

Why Sitting in the Power Strengthens Mediumship Development

Whether you’re beginning your mediumship journey or refining your abilities, Sitting in the Power is essential for growth. It helps you:

  • Strengthen your link with Spirit

  • Expand your intuitive and mediumistic sensitivity

  • Recognize subtle energetic shifts

  • Sustain stronger, clearer connections during readings

  • Improve accuracy and clarity

  • Develop trust with the Spirit world

Many working mediums consider it the single most important practice in their development.

What Does It Mean to Be “Sat For”?

In development circles, you may hear the phrase being sat for.
This is a dedicated practice where your mentor or circle focuses on your energy as you blend with Spirit.

Being sat for includes:

  • The teacher observing your power as it expands

  • Sensing the quality and depth of your blending

  • Offering guidance on what they experience from your energy

  • Helping you understand your strengths and areas to refine

This process is invaluable because it reveals:

  • How Spirit feels when blending with you

  • How your presence shifts as your power builds

  • Where you are growing

  • Where you can deepen your practice

With this feedback, your development accelerates—because you’re no longer learning alone, but with awareness and support.

Final Thoughts

  • Meditation brings your awareness inward.

  • Sitting in the Power expands your power outward and blends you with Spirit.

  • Being sat for offers guidance that helps your mediumship grow faster and with greater clarity.

If you're feeling called to develop your intuitive or mediumistic abilities, Sitting in the Power is the foundation that supports everything else. It is the doorway to trust, connection, and deep spiritual awareness.

Carrie Brown Reilly