AMERICAN PSYCHIC.

A PSYCHIC TOLD LARRY TALBOT TO BEWARE OF THE MOON. NANCY REAGAN CONSULTED THEM IN THE WHITE HOUSE. YOKO SENT JOHN ON TRIPS WITH NO MISSION BECAUSE HER PSYCHIC TOLD HER TO. ARE THESE SOOTHSAYERS FOR REAL OR JUST IN IT FOR THE CASH?

As soon as you picked up this magazine I channeled your energy and I examined your life. Here is what I see, here is your fortune: You’re at a crossroads in your life. The next two to three years are crucial. You’re not where you should be at your job. It’s time to focus. Over the past three years, you’ve been sidetracked. You’re going to be successful, but there are some things that stress you. There is someone out there that doesn’t want you to succeed. I’m not sure why, either jealousy or envy. Do you know who this person is? You need to get them out of your life if you can. Financially you worry, but you shouldn’t, all that worrying manifests itself physically. Also, you’re creative, but don’t really get to explore that fully. You should focus on your creativity as well. I’m picking up something about your home. You’re going to move or redecorate. About your love life? There’s a question in the back of your mind. It will work itself out soon and you’ll get the answer.

Pretty good, huh? That’ll cost you 50 bucks. You can mail me a check.

My editor asked me to prove that the psychics of SoHo and the West Village are “bullshit,” but I fancy myself a man of anthropological ideals, so I couldn’t approach the assignment in that way. As any good anthropologist knows, you can’t enter into a study with an answer already formulated. I had to cast away the “bullshit” outcome and let the psychics demonstrate their own legitimacy.

My study was conducted over four months, visiting a total of six psychics. For the first three psychics I wore plain clothes: sneakers, jeans, black hooded fleece, and baseball cap. I also sported a 5 o’clock shadow which added to the anticorporate world effect. Each of these visits occurred around two in the afternoon. Then I visited another three psychics as if I was a businessman - clean shaven, donning a Brooks Brothers pin-striped suit, tie, and dress shoes. I went to their “offices” between six and seven p.m. as if coming home from work. The plan was to determine if my appearance had anything to do with psychic predictions. There are a few other things worth noting: I never told any of the psychics that I worked as a journalist or feature writer. Instead, when I was asked, I had two different careers. When I wore jeans I wrote children’s books (which is true).When I visited in a suit, I told the psychics I worked in the sales department for a publishing company (which is also true). Other things worth noting: I’m 29, male, white, tall, polite, and somewhat soft-spoken. These were constant in all of my visits.

Wanting to Believe
Most people who visit psychics want to believe in something. Barring nihilists, humans in general want to believe in something greater than themselves.We are also, despite what they say about New Yorkers, trusting by nature. So even if a psychic is only correct a quarter of the time, we walk out of the experience feeling like it was useful, like they had somehow glimpsed into our lives and futures. Refer to my prediction at the top of the page and read it again. It may not suit you exactly, but isn’t there enough in there that it could be you?Well, this is where much of the gray area with psychics arises. Generalities and shades of truth work wonders on those who want to believe. I was told by one psychic, “Whatever you do in these next couple of years are supposed to reflect on the rest of your life.” Really? You think? The next two to three years will help shape my life? So did the last three! The last six! The last ten! I think my high school guidance counselor handed me the same dose of knowledge when I was choosing what college to attend. The thing is, while it is general, it is also true.

Things in Common
While blanket statements are wonderful for winning someone’s trust, addressing common issues also helps the psychic’s cause. Manhattan is a city of renters so predicting that I’d be moving isn’t that far fetched.With leases running out, bed bug infestations, and the massive world of subletting, telling a twentysomething New Yorker that a move was coming up (especially without a timeframe) isn’t exactly a mind-blowing revelation. Five of the six psychics told me that a move was on its way, and you know what, I did move. So did the tarot cards and psychic readings tell them or is it just a common assumption? As for specifics, one psychic informed me I would be moving across a great deal of water in the next year. Assuming that she didn’t mean the East River, I couldn’t begin to guess where I’d be going, but then again the year has just begun.

What can be said about moving can also apply to “traveling.” Four of the psychics (all three when I was wearing jeans) told me there was traveling in my future. Traveling? Is “traveling” visiting my grandfather on Long Island or going on safari in Batswana? Note that three of the four who mentioned traveling were visited in the last days of October.With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, the idea of travel doesn’t come as a great shock. Last year USA Today estimated that over 39 million people in America would be traveling for Thanksgiving. So was it surprising when I booked a ticket to Chicago to eat a turkey with my family? No. One mentioned I would be traveling someplace warm. Again, at the end of October, with the temperature steadily decreasing, it is easy to assume that sometime in the next six months of winter your average New Yorker, who had $40 to spend on an 8-minute psychic reading, would have the cash to take Jetblue somewhere warm. Sadly, I don’t, and five months later that “traveling” still hasn’t occurred.

All of the psychics said I would be very successful–some said due to travel, one said I would be successful using my mind (there goes that career as a hand model) while another told me I would have to take risks, work hard and stop being complacent. These are all viable ways of being successful, but how does one measure success? Surely I will be successful in something. Everyone is successful in something, even if that success comes in the form of never being successful.

Is There a Writer in the House?
While universal predictions and descriptions arose, insight about creativity seemed to be widespread and sometimes became rather specific. All six of the psychics said I was creative.

Of the first three psychics I visited wearing jeans, two stated that I wasn’t using my creativity to its full potential– who is? Another psychic listed that I should be doing: “Something using your mind, either acting?Writing? Poems? Or making songs?”

The three psychics I visited wearing a suit actually came up with similar results. While one stated that I am not working to my full creative potential, (it can be assumed that most people in suits aren’t) the other two psychics were more upfront about writing. One stated that I was going to be a writer and a professor. I told her that I worked in publishing and denied that I was a writer, but she was emphatic about this career path. She went on to explain I should start small and build a portfolio. She mentioned sports writing (which I have never done) as a good place to begin. The final psychic, who I visited later that day, said I was “born to be a designer, born to be very artistic.” A little later she asked, “Did you write something, or are you going to write something?” She said I would take this piece public and receive success. (If you’ve read this far, I consider this that success.)

Was it odd that they all mentioned this creative side? Probably not. You could assume that if someone is willing to consult a psychic they aren’t exactly your average boring person. Also, most people have a creative side. Then again, no one told me I should be in sales, none said I was born to be a politician. Like I said, I’m rather soft-spoken, which isn’t exactly a good quality in the corporate world of young go-getters, so by meeting me and chatting, could it be possible that a stranger would guess that I’m creative? Sure. But exactly why would the one psychic go on and on about me becoming a writer? Was something really in the cards?

Why My Girlfriend Now Has a Love-Hate Relationship with Psychics
While they all agreed that I was creative, there was a bundle of contradictions in the love category. In the movies people always ask psychics about true love, if they are going to find their soul mate. First off, the phrase “soul mate” has always annoyed the hell out of me. I’m not one who fancies the idea of a “soul,” yet alone two of them tripping the light fantastic for all eternity. I do, on the other hand, madly love my girlfriend of 14 months. I tell you this not to be sappy and cute (though it will win me huge points with her) but because it factors into what the six psychics had to say about my current relationship.

The first psychic I visited told me that I would be married by 32, but that I had not met my soul mate yet. Later that day, I visited a different psychic who told me I was with my soul mate. The next day, a third psychic confirmed what the second psychic had said. Two and a half months later, a fourth psychic told me not to focus on my relationship but to focus on my career and let things in the love category steer their course. The fifth told me that my girlfriend and I were meant to be together but there was a lot of dark, negative energy surrounding the relationship (which she could research and cleanse for $300). She added that someone with the letter “G” or “J” (neither are my girlfriend’s initials) was going to bear my children…hmmm. The final psychic started off by implying that her tarot cards said my love life wasn’t going so well; I said it was great. She said, “Maybe [there’s] another lady that still could be on your mind?” I said, “no,” and she made the excuse, “Maybe she’s thinking about you?”With each question she shifted her information based on my answer until she reached a vision that I could neither prove nor disprove. Maybe some lady, somewhere is thinking about me? But that’s a far cry from her original statement about my love life not going well.

A clear vision of my relationship based on their survey cannot really be made, and the same thing can be said about my offspring. It’s a boy, it’s a girl, it’s two kids, it’s twins, it’s three kids. Okay, so as you remember, according to one psychic: a woman with the initial ‘G” or “J” is going to give birth to my children. According to this psychic, there will be three pregnancies, but only two births. There will be a set of twins and then a single baby. I know what you’re thinking: it sounds like something an oracle would say in an ancient Greek tragedy.

While I would love to simply discredit this prediction, twins do run in my family (also, according to studies, the birthrate of twins has gone up 65% since the 80s.), so it did stick out to me as an interesting prediction. The thing that stuck out more and was somewhat disturbing was how this psychic said that if “G” or “J” had a problem or pain with her uterus that I shouldn’t let a doctor perform surgery. She was hesitant to release this fact, but as she said it with complete sincerity, and I got the chills. “I don’t know how to say this to you . . . there’s a warning in the cards . . . I could be getting this warning because maybe I could stop the situation, but do I have to tell you? I don’t want to tell you because it’s so a…harsh . . .” She then went on to explain about not letting the doctors do surgery. Revealing this kind of information did a few things: a) it provided a unique detail which I could neither prove nor disprove, b) it scared the shit out of me, and c) it made me want to know more. She quickly followed up the prediction by “It [the card] says I could help correct it, but I don’t know why, I can look into it deeper and find out the meaning.” This was the final card she read and then asked if I wanted to pay her to do deeper research on the subject. Like the old mantra says, “Always leave them wanting more.”

When I left the psychic’s room, I was a little distressed by what she had said. The thought of the mother of my children having some sort of uterine pain sat heavy on my mind as I walked down Sixth Avenue. But I was set at ease when I reached another psychic who told me that I was only going to have two children - one boy, one girl.What happened to the drama around the third birth? There was nothing about it. Out of the other four psychics only one approached the subject of children and she also said there would be two. Two is the national average, by the way.

Weird and Unexplained Things
Five of the six psychics I visited were more or less the same dog and pony show. They flipped over their cards or gave me their psychic reading with a flow that made me feel like they were reading from a script more than trying to understand what the cards were saying. They pumped vague generalities one after another: You will be successful. There is some stress in your life. You like living on your own terms. Etcetera, etcetera. One psychic that had an effect on me, the one who warned me about the doctors, said a few other things that gave me a little dose of the heebie-jeebies. First she went on about my car–she said that I would want to be driving my car, then she changed it, and continued to try to make sense of what the cards were telling her about my automobile. I thought nothing of it until the next day, when I went to move my car and it had been towed. Coincidence?Why she couldn’t have just told me that my car was going to be towed, I don’t know. But still, it was a strange fact, especially when placed in the context of living in the city. Most people don’t even have cars, so to tell me I would want to drive my car (I’m assuming from the impound yard) was an interesting turn of events.

The most striking thing she said to me was, “It [the card] also says you’ve come here to cause me problems. To get me in trouble.” I felt like I had been caught cheating on a test or something. How could she have possibly known that I was there to prove she was “bullshit?” She continued and said “but you’re going to find out that I’m really going to help you.” And she did. Her reading was the only one that stood out as something different.Whether that means it was real or not, I don’t know. But it was different in a few key ways. First of all, it was almost 30 minutes long (three times the average length), second, she provided unique details, and third, there seemed to be something about her that was truly invested in my well-being.

Conclusions
There was no direct connection between what I wore and what the psychics told me. In both outfits I was told I was born to be a leader, and I was also told that I was complacent. The more psychics I visited, the more of a picture seemed to develop about my life. I was gaining insight; whether I was going to be the father of two or three, whether I was traveling across great amounts of water in the next year or living in Manhattan for the next eight, I was forced to examine my future. Not through a crystal ball, but through a categorical analysis. Am I at a crossroads in my life? Of course. Every day is a crossroad even if I don’t acknowledge it. Was I where I wanted to be with regard to my career? No. Should I be working harder in that direction? Yes. Did I explore my creativity as much as I would like? No.Was I planning a move? Yes, but whether or not I was moving isn’t the point–the question forced me to ask myself whether I was happy about my current living situation. The same goes for relationships, whether they told me that my girlfriend was or was not my soul mate isn’t as important as me analyzing whether or not I saw a future in the relationship.

So are they worth it? Yes. Well, depending on the price. All the psychics did one thing in common: they forced me to scrutinize various aspects of my life.Work, health, wealth, success, love, and family are existent in all our lives to one degree or another, and while these things occupy all of our time, the opportunity to examine them, measuring each aspect individually and reevaluating our goals, dreams, and relationships sometimes gets overrun by the simple process of living. It is only until there is a crisis that we reflect and question our paths.

Whether they can really tell the future or not, take solace in the fact that you are paying them for a 10-minute pep-talk, a gut-check, a window of time free of distractions. Together you can examine your future. Not through the cards per se, but through the questions they ask and the evaluations they project. Right or wrong, they will offer you the tools to help assess your life. I say, if you’re going to place your hopes and dreams on a deck of cards you’ve got a better chance in Vegas, but if you approach psychics with an open mind toward examining yourself there is surely something of value to be received.