Demystify?
No crystal balls or turbans — today's "true" psychics say they're in it for the healing and not the cash. But is it the real deal?
By Marissa Stephenson, Jayplay writer
photos: Jeff Brandsted
Two years ago, Val Fiscus wanted to know what color the energy field around her was radiating. Fiscus, Council Bluffs, Iowa, senior, went with a groups of friends to see tarot consultant and holistic healer Dawn Rothwell. To begin, Rothwell first cleansed the room with an herbal spray and then sat everyone down to begin mediation to become aware of their surroundings. When she began working on Fiscus, Rothwell stood four feet away and moved her hands up and down over Fiscus' body, cleansing her chakras — energy centers located in different parts of the body — and performed Reiki, a method of directed healing energy. While she worked, Rothwell told Fiscus what she saw for her.
"She said I had a great-great-grandparent on my right shoulder, helping me to become more artsy, and on my left shoulder was a black tribal leader watching over me, who she said resembled Samuel L. Jackson," Fiscus says. The session was a success for Fiscus. And Rothwell, who now works at The Sacred Sword, 732 Massachusetts St., says she's built a base of dedicated clients. She says people of all ages and personalities come in for readings.
But for an industry that's infamous for scam artists, providing psychic services means struggling for legitimacy and facing skeptics. "You get a backlash in this business," says Gary Shainheit, owner of The Sacred Sword. "People thinking you're crazy, nuts, just not normal." People go to cleanse negative energies, find out their life's purpose or just for entertainment, though many wonder if the readings are for real.
For Perry Sadeghi the answer is yes. Sadeghi, who goes to Rothwell for Reiki sessions and is learning to become a Reiki master, believes in the healing. "I went in once and Dawn said she saw something in my left ovary. I went to the doctor later and he said I had a growth of cells," Sadeghi says. In another session she went to Rothwell with pain in her collarbone, and without Sadeghi mentioning it, Rothwell asked her if it bothered her, then focused the Reiki and Sadeghi says the pain stopped.
While Rothwell says much of what's contained in her sessions and readings comes from material she has memorized from books, she does get the occasional flash of psychic insight. That insight, though, comes for a price: $25 an hour for Tarot readings, which are cards that aim to predict a person's life path, and $35 for Reiki.
Shainheit says people still make assumptions when they come to the store. "What people need to realize is that the psychic world doesn't give two shits about the real world. The real world operates on philological needs: food, shelter and finances. The spiritual world is different. You can't put a true price tag on that," he says. Rothwell says the reason she's been able to stay in business for four years is because she's the real thing. "I doubt that there's ever been someone who's left one of my sessions unsatisfied."
But Erin Ballentine was just that. Ballentine, Overland Park junior, went to see Rothwell to for a Tarot card reading. She says she was skeptical, but curious. Ballentine says the session was short, 10 to 15 minutes, and cost her $20. Six months later, it's not the price, but the prediction that bothers her. "She told me my relationship was going to end and I would meet a man in three months." Ballentine is a lesbian. "She told me I wasn't gay, and I was like, 'What the hell?' I don't know if she was just reading the cards or putting out her whole view on homosexuality, but I was taken aback." But Rothwell says she calls the cards as she sees them, and has to be blunt. "I've had clients leave crying or just break down, but it's not like I can lie to them," she says.