The Psychic Fair

So yes, I went to the Psychic Fair, "Crossed Over Connections" earlier this month. Barbara Patrone, a prominent local medium and the organizer of the Fair, is also a passionate animal advocate who promised a donation to St. Francis Pet Care if only we would staff a table with information about our cause. So staff a table I did.

Like Mr. Obama, I want to be clear. I do not believe in communication from the afterlife for the simple reason that I do not believe in an afterlife. However, after meeting the mediums (oh, how I want to say "media") at Crossed Over Connections, I am convinced that these people are not putting anything over on anyone. They totally believe in their psychic powers and their ability to use them for good. So what we have here are some well-meaning people selling a service roughly akin to chiropracty on the bogus-meter with the best of intentions and with extremely satisfied customers. I refuse to fault them for this.

The Psychic Fair charged visitors $5.00 at the door. Once inside, you could purchase a 20 minute session with the psychic of your choice for only $35. Normally psychics charge by the hour at much higher rates, so you can get a quickie at a big discount. There were eight or nine mediums doing discount readings and equally many vendors selling related products like scented oils, jewelry and crystals.

St Francis Pet Care was offered all proceeds from a raffle to be held the end of the second day of the Fair. Initially this did not look promising. The raffle items provided consisted of three unfortunate T-shirts, an ancient hardcover cookbook with the original price sticker still on it ($3.95), a handful of used books on random topics, and a certificate good for a free 15-minute phone reading. However, several of the participating psychics stopped by the table to donate books they had authored. Apparently psychics are prolific, because we soon accumulated a small library on spiritualism. People bought raffle tickets.

As with medicine or librarianship, there are many specializations within the psychic domain. A psychic is anyone who has perception beyond the traditional five senses, for example, the ability to predict the future. A medium is a psychic who can communicate with spirits. All mediums are psychics, but not all psychics are mediums. A clairvoyant is a kind of cut-rate medium -- she can receive communications from spirits but can't answer back. A shaman on the other hand is a medium on steroids. While plain old mediums are passive conduits for spirit communications, a shaman can actively enter an altered state to find particular spirit helpers. Psychics who practice shamanic healing solicit compassionate human and/or animal spirits to address imbalances in your spiritual energy that can make you unwell. You do not have to be psychic to practice Reiki, a form of energy healing, although many psychics do. Some psychics specialize in oracle card readings with fairy cards or angel cards. There is more, but you get the idea. There is a lot of action at the Psychic Fair.

Most of the mediums at this Fair could communicate with animals as well as humans. In Bridge Between Worlds: My Life as a Psychic Medium (one of the books donated to our raffle) there is a whole chapter devoted to "our pets on the other side", mostly dogs wanting to let their owners know they're waiting by the Rainbow Bridge. Also at this event, all of the psychics were women, and many of them seemed to have a handicap of some kind, from obesity to blindness, suggesting some co-occurrence of disability and psychic ability.

Directly across the aisle from my little raffle table there was a gorgeous display of crystals and polished stones. I asked Idania, co-owner of the unassumingly-named Rock 'n Glass, if her minerals had any special properties. "They are whatever you want them to be, " she replied. "They can be energizing, or calming, or healing, or they can just look nice on a shelf." She was a veritable Wikipedia of information about every specimen I pointed to. She and her partner hand-pick every stone.

At the opposite end of the room a woman named Gail was giving computer-assisted aura picture readings. I don't know if she was using WinAura or some other program, but it generated a color aura display showing all seven chakras which she would then interpret.

Scott was a celebrity guest of sorts. He was not a psychic, but he had crossed to the other side and returned to tell the tale. He was at the Fair to sell his book about the experience, I Was There - It's Real. He donated a raffle copy which I skimmed with interest. In 2009 he suffered a motorcycle accident that broke nearly every bone in his lower body and put him into a coma for 25 days. During that time he had a near-death experience that brought him to the edge of the afterlife. The experience transformed his beliefs and allowed him to forgive the man who had sexually abused him as a child. All fine and good, but I wanted to know if he could forgive the uninsured driver of the pickup that crashed into him. Did he ever apologize? Scott smiled shyly. "The driver was in his 80s and demented. I don't think he even remembers anything happened." Scott had about 45 surgeries to repair the damage and still has a few to look forward to. Whether he crossed or not, he's a sweet and amazingly brave man.

I liked the Psychic Fair. I don't think I will go to another one, but I do want to find Rock 'n Glass to pick out a couple of Christmas presents.