Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Tilt.
The writers’ conference in Daytona had promised to focus on paranormal thrillers as well as psychic fiction. I’m fascinated with psychics and intuitives and how they actually see or hear things.
When a medium says, “I see a handsome man in your future but he’s not tall or dark,” I want to know exactly what it is that the medium does see. Is it a visual flash? Is it her mind’s eye? Does she see it playing across my face in front of her? Or is it just a wild guess?
Consider it a scientific approach—the fact that I like to gather data from various clairvoyants so that I can better understand how this process works as well how it ties in with unified field theory. I chat with several psychics during the course of the conference, some of them far more intuitive than others. But one thing that surprises me is being able to see the process for those who read and don’t necessarily have “the gift of sight.” Yeah, not quite frauds but still with a certain bag of tricks. At the very least, my own intuition tells me that what they’re saying “just ain’t right.” I’ve been very fortunate to work with some of the best clairvoyants in the country on various projects, and I’ve received very accurate readings from them largely, I think, because I was very open to them, shields down, letting them through, letting them see and see everything and with me scheduling times with them when they weren’t off their game with a headache or emotional upset or anything that might obscure the exchange of energetic information.
I’ve been given descriptions, right down to tattoos, double chins, jewelry, favorite sayings, names, and birth- dates. I’ve been given motives, warnings, and insight into events I never could have guessed.
But in Daytona, I meet a woman, not from Daytona, who wants to sell her services to me as a spiritual coach or a life coach. She uses Tarot cards and offers a free reading, along with a little counseling session. It’s all marketing to get me hooked on needing her services.
I’m not seeking counseling, I tell her, and I already have a spiritual coach that I’m quite pleased with. She persists, thinking I might like her better. Snicker.
Since I have my own interest in becoming a life coach, I’m curious about her processes and how she does it and how she’s managed to build such a large clientele. She asks me to shuffle a deck of cards and think about my “situation” while she focuses on the deck. The deck is one I’ve seen before but haven’t looked at closely. The images are interesting, but they don’t appeal to me at a gut level. Crowley, perhaps? Or based on the Crowley deck? Hmmm, maybe not.
She “lays cards” in a formation I’ve never seen used before. I like that—I like learning something new—but then I discover there’s really no rhyme or reason to the spread that I can determine or that she discloses. No past, no present, no future, no challenges, no attitudes, no environment, no dreams or outcome—just simply nine cards thrown down in a triple row. Some of them, I know their meaning, just with a sideways glance, and they’re similar to cards I often pull in readings with friends who are quite good at this psychic stuff.
We’re watching each other, trying to get a grasp of the other. She asks my question and I give her the same one I previously gave to my High Priestess friend, where every word felt dead-on. This woman doesn’t offer up anything immediately. Instead, she asks my birth date.
Plenty of psychics, good psychics, ask this question eventually. They get a better handle on the querent’s personality based on astrological factors. But a month and day aren’t enough. This woman needs my age, too. And she needs to know if I’m in a relationship. She asks odd- ball questions that make me wonder if she’s ever going to offer up anything herself. She spends way too much time focused on my ex and the reading might have wowed me 3 years ago when her offerings would have been accurate.
They’re not now. She asks other questions, too. What’s the biggest disappointment in my life? What themes keep coming up? Do I have children? How old? Would I
consider having another and why? Would I like my writing to be more prosperous? Do I love myself? Would it be okay if I had a man in my life who’s joyful and happy?
They’re good questions for a counseling session, per- haps, but she spends too much of the time second- guessing me, suggesting I might want to get back together with my ex, for example, or that she doesn’t believe me when I tell her that yes, I do love myself. If she were intuitive at all, she’d know how hard I’ve worked to get to this place.
But it’s almost from a script. Thought-provoking questions, yes. But they feel more like marketing hooks than guidance or anything useful. She’ll help me learn to love myself. She’ll help me move on from my marriage. She’ll help me rebirth myself.
She could never be my coach or my counselor. She’s far too sure that everything she’s seen and suggested to me is 100% correct, and when I shake my head that she’s wrong, she tells me that she knows it’s the not answer I want but I just need to take her advice and accept what she “sees” as true.
No thanks. I see too much myself that contradicts her. But still, it’s a useful data point in seeing how this process works and how some people simply work the process.
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