I discovered early on that however well you think other people are getting on with their lives, they’re just muddling through. We are all going through the same shit.
—Roger Daltrey14
You are unique. Just like everybody else.
—Anonymous
A private reading with a single individual is altogether a unique kettle of fish. A private reading can be painful and unrewarding. It can also end up being the most hysterical experience, in every sense of the word—particularly in the frenzied, unhinged sense.
During my years in radio and at psychic fairs and other psychic events, several memorable clients were what I call “special cases”—individuals who are obsessive about anything considered psychic and who won’t take no for an answer. They seem to feel as if I’m their own private psychic trainer or life coach. This is fine with me, if they are reasonable individuals and act on what I might tell them with a grain of salt, but when they demand a reading in supermarkets, shopping malls, or at social events where I am an invited guest, it can get beyond obnoxious. Some of these sorry souls have driven to my house, mailed me nasty letters when I wasn’t responsive enough to them, and generally made a nuisance of themselves.
Like the irrepressible zombies in a scene from Night of the Living Dead, psychic junkies have to have their fix. They have little or no regard for others; it’s all about them. A middle-of-the-night phone call was not uncommon, and if I wasn’t around to answer and immediately provide counsel, I was frequently treated to mean-spirited threats and rants left on my answering service. I was eventually forced to rent a post office box so that I could not be tracked down so easily.
A friend who lives in New Zealand and is one of the world’s best-known psychics and authors was once asked by a woman of dubious mental capacity who he thought was the best psychic in the United States. This woman had gone so far as to show up on his doorstep, naked and begging for a reading. Thinking to help me gain some remuneration (as well as get himself out of a nasty situation), he offered my name and phone number. For months afterward she called me at all hours, until I abruptly ended all connection to this nutty and possibly dangerous sycophant.
Such neurotic seekers are sometimes hard to discern during a first-time call for guidance. They might start off acting quite normally, but then quickly degenerate into blithering idiots, presenting difficult situations to escape from.
One night Tami phoned, a woman who wanted a personal reading. This was early in my days of doing private readings, and I as yet had no idea what I was getting myself into. She sounded reasonable enough. She suggested that I meet her at her nearby apartment, and we set a time and settled on a fee for a half-hour reading.
Her modest apartment building was in a part of town known for its singles scene. As I climbed the stairs to her apartment, I thought briefly that this might be a little more intimate than the usual situation, but I needed the cash and figured I could handle it. I knocked on the door and was met by an attractive bleached-blonde in her twenties. Okay, so far so good.
“Hi, I’m Mark. I’m here for your psychic reading.”
“Oh, hi. Glad you could come over. Please come in.”
I noticed immediately that Tami looked a little nervous and that she glanced over my shoulder and down the stairs as I entered her apartment. It was a nice little love nest, complete with wicker furniture and a ceiling fan. She offered me a beer, which I declined, and asked me to sit in one of her oversized modern chairs. She pulled out cash for the reading and handed it to me in a hurried manner, suggesting that she wanted me to get to work pronto. Tami bit one of her nails and brushed back her severely dated Farrah Fawcett-style bangs.
A candid shot giving tender private guidance to a wayward young girl sometime in the late ’90s.
“So, I need to know about my boyfriend Danny right away.”
“Can I take out my cards first?” I asked as politely as I could.
“Oh, sure. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m a little nervous.” She chewed bubble gum and snapped it as she talked.
“No need to be. This will be fun. Just relax and let me do all the work.” I felt like a masseur. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
She fidgeted in her chair. “It’s not the reading part. It’s Danny I’m nervous about.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, he has a terrible temper.” Tami stood and went to the window, where she pulled aside the curtain and looked down at the parking lot.
“Temper?”
“Oh, yes. And he’s the jealous type. Capricorn and all that.”
“Well, this reading will be more about you than him, so let’s forget about him and see what the cards can tell us about both of you, okay?” I tried to refocus my energy on shuffling the cards and letting her cut three piles for past, present, and future, before she sprang up again and paced the room.
A strange feeling began to creep up my spine. “You do want me to go on with the reading, don’t you?”
“I do. It’s just that he beat up the last guy he caught in here with me. He pays the rent and all, so he thinks he owns me.”
I looked at the three cards she had cut to and was once again reminded of the synchronistic effect the tarot can sometimes have. Spread out was all I needed to know. The past was the Emperor, a card of hard dominance and power. The present card was the Hanged Man, a card of suspension and entrapment. And to round out this uncanny set, the future card was the Devil. The Devil means avoiding the temptation to stay with things that may be holding you back and breaking any chains of bondage that may be restraining you.
Tami’s face dropped into a look of abject fear when she saw His Satanic Majesty staring up at her.
“Now, don’t jump to any conclusions, Tami,” I said. “Let’s see how the other cards work out before you take the Devil too seriously.”
“He is a devil. He almost killed my ex-husband.”
“Ex-husband?”
“Yeah. He hurt him real bad. He’s a judo expert.”
My throat was suddenly very dry. I was almost ready for that cold beer Tami had offered, but I thought for my own safety it might be best to remain as clear-headed as possible.
She began to whine. “He’s just so possessive. I can’t go anywhere or see anyone.”
“Does Danny live close by?” I tried to ask casually.
“He lives here, but he promised he would stay out for at least an hour. He’s working out at his gym.”
“So, how does Danny feel about psychics? I mean in general.” I was trying to be tactful, but my courage was beginning to fade.
“He hates them. When he was a baby someone told his mother that he would turn out bad and never amount to anything. I’m starting to think that the psychic was right. That’s why I called you.”
I checked my watch. Twenty minutes left to go. I had completely forgotten about the tarot cards. I was instead considering whether or not it was worth thirty bucks to possibly end up in a hospital.
Tami made up my mind for me. She had been standing by the window, surveying the parking lot when she said, “Oh, shit. He’s driving into the garage. You better go!”
In two quick motions I threw Tami’s cash back onto her coffee table and scooped up my tarot cards. I was out the door in less than ten seconds and flying down the stairs, coat in hand. I tried to look unruffled as a jarheaded jock in a sweatsuit passed me at the bottom of the stairs. He was red-faced, flexing his hands in a threatening manner, and I swear the veins in his neck were standing out.
Life as a private reader is never boring and adrenaline is a powerful cocktail. I count my blessings often and, on occasion, wonder if Tami is still alive.
After my KYAK stint, I usually had at least two or three private readings scheduled each week. Danielle managed to get my phone number from the Light Path Foundation. I refer to Danielle as the Woman Who Never Listened.
For our first reading, we decided on a neutral meeting place. I refused to do any more home readings without plenty of party guests in sight to protect me from liability or harm. Sacred Grounds had become my base of operations, a coffeehouse perfectly suited to my purposes. It was not too upscale and catered to a clientele of bikers, old hippies, and beach locals. The décor was shabby-chic with tons of bad art on the walls and thrift-shop couches and pillows scattered about. Their tucked-away booths gave me the privacy I needed without being too cozy.
When I arrived, Danielle was sitting in a booth looking dejectedly out the window, an empty coffee cup in front of her on the table. Her early arrival told she was in dire need of someone to talk to.
We apparently had the whole place to ourselves. I ordered a tea, and then slid into the booth opposite her. “You must be Danielle?”
“Yes, and you are Mark. I saw you at Light Path, but I was too shy to get a reading from you in front of all those people.”
“All those people? They are mostly there to get readings just like this one,” I said, hoping to put her at ease.
“I know. I just wasn’t ready, I guess.”
Danielle obviously had some self-esteem problems. “That’s normal. Having total strangers talk to you about your life takes some getting used to, especially if they are psychic.”
I sized her up as I sat down. She was average-looking with short-cropped red hair, no noticeable jewelry or wedding band, and she seemed a little rumpled for her middle-forties age. She wore a buttoned-up corduroy coat; in fact, only her face and hands were not covered by clothing. I recalled an older woman I had once seen in a sideshow who had looked as normal as this, until she had stripped off her long coat to reveal a completely tattooed body.
Danielle flashed a wad of cash in my face and I demurely waved it away. “We will get to that later.” I smiled, trying to seem slightly indignant.
I gave her my usual two-minute spiel about the cards and we dove into a three-card tarot reading. When the Lovers card came up in the future position, I was well on my way. The cards could have gone in many directions, but it was all about love, as it inevitably is so often.
“I see trouble in love,” I said gravely. If you are paying for a private reading with a total stranger, why wouldn’t there be some kind of trouble in love?
“You’re right. That’s amazing! My boyfriend, Carl, is very untrustworthy. He lives on a boat in the harbor, and he’s never around when I need him.” She looked wistful and heartbroken.
Danielle’s card for the present position was the Wheel of Fortune. “There seem to be connections to money as well. Someone is taking some risks.” Love and money are like that, aren’t they? Danielle was involved with a risky person.
Her past card was the Moon, representing the powers of nature that we cannot control. When it is in the past position, it can mean the sitter has had to learn hard lessons about patience and what they can and cannot control.
Danielle agreed with my reading about her having little or no control over her situation, that meaning Carl. “Yes, he doesn’t have a job and is always borrowing money from me. He never pays it back.”
I felt like I had enough to tell her everything she needed to hear. “I see you have a passionate and loving side, and it is very difficult for you to control your gift of giving to others. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. You have a hard time saying no at times when you should, and Carl knows this. He likes you the way you are. But change is indicated by the Wheel of Fortune.”
“You’re hitting it on the head, Mark. Carl just takes and takes, and then I don’t see him for weeks at a time. He just sails away. When he comes back, he’s all lovey-dovey with me and seems to have plenty of cash around on his boat. Then he spends it all on booze and I don’t know what.”
I thought I had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from and where it was going.
“Were you ever in the nursing profession?”
“Yes! How on Earth did you know that?”
This was a simple and not especially lucky guess. Givers who cannot control their giving side are very often in the medical field. They are healers and nurturers. Parasites frequently latch onto them.
“When we are givers, it tends to attract takers. You may be putting yourself in danger. Where does your friend Carl go when he sails away, if I may ask?”
I was sure by now that Danielle was in my pocket and would answer me about almost anything I might ask.
“He won’t tell me most of the time, but I know he goes down to Mexico two or three times a month.”
Let’s put the pieces together, without recourse to any particularly psychic information, shall we? We will call Carl a “suspect” at this point, because that’s what he probably was:
SUSPECT BORROWS EXTRA CASH FROM A LONELY SINGLE WOMAN.
SUSPECT LEAVES TOWN FOR MEXICO.
SUSPECT RETURNS TO STATESIDE HARBOR WITH LOTS OF CASH.
SUSPECT ENJOYS BOOZE, THE COMPANIONSHIP OF A WOMAN (OR WOMEN),
AND SOON RUNS OUT OF MONEY, REPEATING STEPS 1, 2, AND 3.
Does it take a degree in psychology or criminology to find the pattern here? I still find it hard to believe that people cannot connect these dots themselves.
Probably, in most cases, the truth is that most people already know what they should be doing differently but are in denial (or love) and want a clairvoyant, a “crazy psychic,” that they can blame if their future turns out badly. And if that future goes well, they return to tell us how right we were. Either way, those who are in love with a persuasive con artist or master criminal don’t stand much of a chance, unless they listen to what they may truly not want to hear.
“I see you breaking away from this person and finding a new love in the next six months,” I insisted as strongly as possible. I wanted to get this woman as far away from Carl as I could.
“But I love him.”
“Love is blind. You have asked me what I see, and I see danger and more trouble with this person, unless you break away.”
“But you saw love in the future!” She was begging me to adjust the reading to her expectations now. I knew this affair could only end badly, and I stuck to my guns. Telling her what she wanted to hear would cause more trouble—for both of us.
“I know what I said about love, but it’s not going to be with Carl. He is draining your love.”
She turned away from me and looked at a spot on the floor. Near tears, she stuttered, “You’re right. I will do what you say and stop punishing myself.”
“Good. There’s a much better relationship with an honorable man in your future, but you have to be strong enough to get away from Carl.”
“I’ll try.” She sobbed. She knew I was right, but I could tell she had not been expecting the cold, hard truth.
“The cards say you will not try, you will do this. My job is not a guessing game; it’s a knowing of what will be.” I was driving home a hard bargain, but I knew we would both be happier if I kept hammering at her exactly what the cards had said. It was that simple.
I gathered up my cards and sat back. Our half-hour was over. Danielle reached into her bag and peeled off thirty well-worn bucks from a fat roll and handed them to me. I wondered which notorious drug kingpin’s hand this cash had passed through.
So why was Danielle the Woman Who Never Listened? Because, though we parted with a glow of new friendship that day, this same reading was repeated at least once every month at her expense for four or five months running, until I finally had to tell her I couldn’t help her if she didn’t do what I suggested. It didn’t matter what tarot cards were turned up, it always became the drama of Danielle and Carl’s love and money problems.
To Danielle’s credit, she had total faith in my ability. Unfortunately, I couldn’t continue to take from her, like Carl was doing and probably many other men had done in her life. I never had the chance to find out about any of her past loves because she was always so focused on Carl. Keeping an eye out for undercover cops and DEA officers was definitely not something I welcomed as my future, and I tried hard to make her aware of that very real possibility looming large in her life, though I stopped short of actual accusation of unlawful activities.
There is a turning point that is never achieved with many professional psychics. It can evolve into a manipulative and highly destructive pattern. After five or six readings, warnings, or admonishments, it’s up to a higher power to convince people like Danielle to clean up her act. If she eventually got busted for being on a boat loaded with cocaine (or whatever Carl was hauling), I didn’t want to be in the line of fire or even have my name in her address book. A psychiatrist might have kept reeling someone like Danielle in, repeating, “We will take up where we left off next week,” but doing something like that wasn’t in me.
The people who never listen take up a lot of energy, both physically and mentally. Repeat sitters are hard enough to deal with—keeping track of their friends and problems, remembering the tiniest detail that they will sometimes hold on to for months or even years, and exhaustedly telling them the same story over and over. It’s a draining experience I never looked forward to repeating. When I had three or four of these thickheaded clients at a time, I needed to take notes to keep up with each individual saga. Plus, I was expected to be a memory expert as well as a psychic. Sitters such as Tami and Danielle pushed me further and further away from doing one-on-one readings. Now, if anyone asks whether I give private readings, I assess that person very carefully before I hand them my business card or take the referral.
The major players in today’s upscale psychic market, those who can demand five or seven hundred dollars for a twenty-minute private reading, can afford to hire minions to perform extensive computer background checks (providing a wealth of “psychic” information) as well as a hefty bodyguard or two, just in case. Doing a private psychic reading is like doing private detective work—it can be very dangerous, there is no hazard pay, and it can turn into a private hell I certainly don’t wish to ever return to.
14 Tony Fletcher, Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon (London: Omnibus Press, 2005).