Featured Course: Soul Gifts

13 online lessons with facilitated discussion

Done in your own time and at your own pace

To learn more and enroll click on image above.

Soul Gifts – Discovering Your Unique Gifts and How They Support Your Soul’s Calling, created by Lauri Ann Lumby supports you in knowing the truth that YOU are uniquely gifted to experience meaning and purpose in your life and to find fulfillment in the use and engagement of your gifts, first for yourself, and then, in service to the betterment of the world.

Your gifts were given to you so that you might enjoy happiness, and your gifts are meant to be shared so that the world can become a better place for all of us to enjoy. You cannot become the person you were meant to be – achieving your greatest potential – without discovering, cultivating, nurturing and then sharing your gifts; and the world cannot become what it was meant to be without the gifts you have to share. For your own sake, and for the sake of the world, I thank you for giving yourself the permission and the time to explore and discover your soul gifts!

Over the course of thirteen lessons, you will have an opportunity to first explore the calling that has set you on the path to exploring your gifts along with the importance of understanding that while your soul gifts may be grand in such gifts as leadership, music or the arts, your gifts may also reside in what you might judge as weakness, imperfection or failure. Ultimately, all that we are and everything that we have has the potential for being a gift that provides for our fulfillment while supporting us in helping the world.

Next, you will have an opportunity to explore what the ancient, sacred traditions, have identified as unique and special (spiritual) gifts. Some of these gifts we will draw from the Western Judeo-Christian tradition, others from the Vedic traditions of India, specifically in the writings of Patanjali. I have added some additional gifts that have arisen in support of our current stage of human evolution. In this discovery, you will have an opportunity to explore such concrete gifts as hospitality, craftsmanship, encouragement and leadership; in addition to the more intuitive gifts of discernment of spirits, spiritual hearing, spirit vision and clairempathy. You will also explore some very non-traditional gifts such as invisibility and time-walking.

Below is a list of the gifts that you will have an opportunity to explore and entertain:

Traditional Spiritual Gifts in the Western Judeo-Christian Tradition (charisms):

Administration, (voluntary) Celibacy, Craftsmanship, Discernment of Spirits, Encouragement, Salespersonship, Faith, Giving, Healing, Helps, Hospitality, Intercessory Prayer, Knowledge, Leadership, Mercy, Missionary, Music, Pastoring, Prophecy, Service, Teaching, Voluntary Poverty, Wisdom, Writing, Speaking in Tongues, Interpretation of Tongues

Intuitive Gifts common to the Vedic tradition and beyond:

Clairaudience, Clairempathy, Clairevoyance, Clairsentience, Telepathy

Non-Traditional Gifts:

Invisibility, Flight, Trans-dimensional vision, hearing, Time Walking, Inter-dimensional travel, Hosting, Mediumship, Manifesting, Elasticity, Time Morphing, Blending, Exorcism, Soul Retrieval

A Note on Western and Eastern Scripture: Please note that I do not approach scripture from a dogmatic or doctrinal perspective. Neither do I use it as a way to instill fear or manipulate specific actions or behaviors. Instead, I approach scripture as the ancients did – as a collection of symbolic and metaphorical stories (myth, poetry, etc.) which have the opportunity to reflect back to us aspects of ourselves. In this way, scripture becomes a vehicle through which our highest self can speak to us – providing guidance, support, inspiration, nourishment and even healing. When we pierce through the veil of other people’s interpretations and allow our Soul to speak to us personally and directly through these ancient texts, we discover the transformational power of The Word as it was originally intended – as a tool to guide and sustain us on the path of self-awareness and personal growth.

Seeing the Truth Beyond the Veil

I once had a friend beautifully articulate one of the gifts that has helped support me in my own journey while also being a tool through which I am able to be a source of support for others.  She put it this way, “Lauri, you have the ability of seeing the truth beyond the veil.”

I have indeed accepted this as being one of my superpowers.  In the Catholic tradition in which I was raised, this superpower would be considered a charism (a gift of the Holy Spirit) and would be called:

Discernment of Spirits

Traditionally, discernment of spirits is described as “the immediate and intuitive ability to capture the spiritual source of certain behaviors or ideas or to grasp the nature of the spiritual presence in people, places or things” (Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory, Weddell, 1997, p. 27). 

Discernment of spirits might be thought of as the ability to detect “the devil in the room.”  I think of it more as being able to see the truth beyond the illusion and to hear the truth beyond the words.  

I have experienced this gift in several ways.  My earliest recollection of this gift was in my uncanny ability to “read” the integrity (or lack thereof) of a person.  At a very young age I seemed to immediately know if someone was a liar, a cheat, or quite simply evil.  I also knew if they were an honest, authentically good person. The individual didn’t need to say a word or demonstrate an action. I simply knew. Later experiences with these individuals always proved my earliest sensations (discernment) to be true. In hindsight, I can humbly say that my discernment of spirits in 100% accurate. The challenge has been to believe it and not give into the societal conditioning that tells us we must “give them the benefit of the doubt.”

At 57, I uncompromisingly believe my first impressions of people because I find I have never been wrong.

The other, and perhaps most helpful use of this gift is in working with clients and students. I see and sense that which is holding them back from living their truth. I see and sense resistance, fears, unhealed wounds, and past traumas, as well as beliefs and behaviors based not in truth, but in conditioning. When facilitating process work with a client, I might ask them a question and in whatever way they respond, I can tell if that is the path of inquiry to continue, or if there is something “hiding” behind their words.  The client will often say one thing, but I hear or sense another.  It’s difficult to describe.  I just know that there is something hiding that seeks to be known – something that is their REAL truth and not just that which they show to the world or want to believe about themselves.

Admittedly, seeing the truth beyond the veil is not always pleasant.  Sometimes I see, sense, or know something “the other” doesn’t want to know or doesn’t want others to know about them.  I have known, for example, that certain individuals were choosing the wrong partner or venturing down a path of failure. I have also sensed decisions that would open doors to liberation and freedom for an individual – decisions they may or may not be willing to make. It’s one thing to share these awarenesses in a client/practitioner relationship.  It’s another thing when what you are seeing and knowing is related to a family member or friend.  Having the ability to see the truth beyond the veil requires me to carefully discern in what circumstances it is appropriate to share what I know and when it is best to remain silent.

Silence, I have learned is also one of my superpowers.


Discovering and learning about your own unique giftedness and how you are called to use those gifts is one of the critical stages of the Magdalene Priesthood Training (for women and men) and the Authentic Freedom Mastery Training.

When Given the Gift of Prophecy

One does not ask for the gift of prophecy.  If one were to ask for this gift, they would not know for what they are asking as the gift of prophecy often feels more like a curse than a gift.  I know this because I am one who has been given this gift. It is not with pride, but with deep humility and some personal agony that I acknowledge this gift.

used with permission: Catherine E. Case

Prophecy is a many-edged sword.  It allows us to see the sign of the times – to understand what will happen if humanity (or individuals) continues on its current path. With this gift we are provided with the tools and steps that could be taken to turn a path of potential destruction into one of peace, harmony, and fruitfulness.  We are called (compelled, forced) to share what we see and know with an audience that is most often deaf to our words. Herein lies the pain of being a prophet:

  • We often find our words and our very selves ignored.
  • We are accused of being insane.
  • People turn against us for speaking the truth. (Sometimes we don’t even need to speak it.)
  • People hate us for seeing the truth they don’t want to see for themselves.
  • We are condemned for challenging the world to let go of the status quo and the perceived comfort therein in favor of actions that could lead to a better world.

Being a prophet is a lonely calling for which we don’t get paid.  Prophecy leads not to welcome and acceptance, but to rejection and condemnation. I know this because it is exactly what happened to me – most specifically in my (now former) relationship with the Catholic Church – more generally as it relates to some acquaintances, friends, and the world at large.

No one in their right mind would ask for the gift of prophecy.  

And yet, here it is. As it relates to the gift and calling of prophecy, I take comfort in these words from the prophet Jeremiah:

The word of the LORD came to me, saying:
            Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
                        before you were born I dedicated you,
                        a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

            But do you gird your loins;
                        stand up and tell them
                        all that I command you.
            Be not crushed on their account,
                        as though I would leave you crushed before them;
            for it is I this day
                        who have made you a fortified city,
            a pillar of iron, a wall of brass,
                        against the whole land:
            against Judah’s kings and princes,
                        against its priests and people.
            They will fight against you but not prevail over you,
                        for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.

Jeremiah 1: 4-5, 17-19

As one endowed with the gift of prophecy I have no other choice but to continue in its use – seeing the signs of the times and sharing what I see as a way humanity just might save itself from itself. As Jesus often said, this gift is will be received by “those who have ears to hear.”


What is Your Magic?, created by Lauri Ann Lumby, OM, OPM, MATS  was created to support you in knowing the truth that YOU are uniquely gifted to experience meaning and purpose in your life and to find fulfillment in the use and engagement of your gifts, first for yourself, and then, in service to the betterment of the world.

Online course. 13 lessons at your own pace.