CRYSTAL B*LLS
Mary Wakefield reveals the sorry secrets of the
psychics who have been doing brisk business since 11 September
AFTER 11 September, New Yorkers started going to church again. Grace Church on Broadway resounded with the voices of hundreds of hip thirty-somethings, and the carved wooden pews of St Thomas's on Fifth Avenue were crammed with middleaged couples with tidy hair. At St Marksin-the-Bowery, twice the usual number of free-thinking artists tore pieces from the wheat-free communion loaf.
It didn't last. By December, the congregations were thinning out again, and by spring 2002 church attendance across America had resumed the steady decline that began in the 1960s. But nonetheless, polls show that the number of Americans who say they believe in 'a power greater than themselves' is increasing. Since the attack on the World Trade Center, Manhattanites talk of a new sense of 'awareness' and a feeling of 'otherworldly protection' — they just don't have the time for organised religion. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the beneficiaries of New York's spiritual revival have been not the churches but the professional psychics.
The supernatural community was quick to see the potential in 9/11. John Edward, host of the television show Crossing Over, recorded a series in which he purported to contact the spirits of those who died in the towers. The Jamison sisters, 'psychic twins', published a photograph of themselves superimposed over the burning World Trade Center, claiming to have foreseen the disaster. The clairvoyant Sylvia Browne, who charges $700 for a telephone reading, installed a pop-up screen on her website in which she explained that she hadn't predicted the attacks because she is not 'omniscient'. She did, though, have 'important information' that Osama bin Laden 'and another group' were behind it. Over the last year, the original roadside psychics have also flourished. It is nearly impossible to find a block in Manhattan on which there isn't a sign covered in painted stars advertising tarot and crystal-ball readings for $5.
Only after you are sitting, straight-backed and self-conscious, on Madame Zara's sofa do you notice from the price list that a standard reading will set you back $40. For the advertised $5, you get a 'personality test': 'So, siddown. Hmmm. Oh dear, I see a lot of negative energy around you. Some people are wishing you ill, You know what? If I use the crystal ball [$120], I can probably make the bad people go away. No? Please close the door on your way out.'
'I see you travelling overseas,' said both Madame Sara on East 36th Street and Madame Zara on 35th within seconds of hearing me speak in an English accent. Madame Zara, a 29-year-old Asian woman, has been aware of her psychic power for as long as she can remember. 'As a small child,' she said, 'I knew what people were going to say before they spoke.' Her clients are mostly Manhattan residents, many of whom have weekly consultations. 'People come here to ask for help in choosing the right path in life and to be forewarned of bad things to come.'
Sitting in a room the size of a fridge, surrounded by mauve crystals and pieces of gold-sprayed wood, Madame Zara looked at me with a mixture of serenity and compassion. 'I see great things in your future,' she said, laying out tarot cards in lines. 'You work in the arts, writing or painting. Also I see that you have a very compassionate, spiritual side.' As I left, tripping over a mad woman and a fat orange cat on the stairs, I became aware that my brain was in cahoots with Madame Zara. While I could instantly recall all the flattering things she had said (and somehow they seemed to have a ring of truth), it was an effort to remember the instantly falsifiable stuff about being good at languages, someone called Michael and the letter J.
There was a queue outside Madame Sonja's on Sixth Avenue. One man had brought his young son to ask for a reading about the boy's future. The manager of a 24-hour topless bar in Brooklyn wanted to make sure he wasn't going to drop dead tomorrow. A woman with a rigid hairdo and a city suit was there for her monthly appointment. As they waited, the plastic chair that the strip-club manager was sitting on collapsed beneath him.
Marcus Goodwin, a former roadside psychic, explained that Manhattan's paranormal professionals keep their clientele hooked with a mixture of flattery and fear. 'For example, I know this woman, a very successful, loaded lawyer, and she goes to see a psychic,' he said. 'You'd be amazed at how many rich, clever people go to psychics. Anyway, the psychic does some trickery and scares the lady, convinces her that this must be real and then begins to tell her this black cloud stuff that they always do: "Oooh, I can see there's a dark shadow over you. You're gonna die." ' Marcus has large, intense, very pale-blue eyes, a smooth orange tan and a line of thick black hairs running along the outer rim of his ears. He also wears eyeliner.
'So anyway, the lawyer regularly brings the psychic piles of money to make the cloud go away, which over six years adds up to a hundred grand. Which is where I came in and used my ability to try to help.' Marcus has put his psychic talents to many uses. Until recently he focused his powers on determining which way the stock exchange would go, and wrote a book, The Psychic Trader. He does not look quite as rich as he should.
'I asked the lawyer lady to think of three numbers in her head without telling me. Then I wrote down three numbers myself on a piece of paper and passed it to her. She told me her numbers, then looked at mine. They were identical. So now I had her attention, and the authority to tell her, "These sorts of mind games are possible in the right moment. It doesn't mean the psychic lady is right about the dark shadow." I don't think she went back.'
'These psychics are everywhere,' said Marcus, looking nervously down the street. His fingernails were gnawed down to the cuticles, the skin around them bloody in patches. 'They prey on vulnerable and selfcentred people. The less spiritual they are, the more curious they are. But it's incredibly easy to get people hooked. You just ask a client to think of a question they want answered and, nine times out of ten, their questions will be about health, wealth or love. So you tell them about these topics, with a few hit or miss specifics thrown in, and they think you're a genius.'
Recently the business has diversified and there are now psychic psychiatrists, psychic bookies and psychic accountants. In New York, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies has just opened a Center for Spirituality and Psychotherapy. As Marcus says, 'Since the World Trade Center, everybody feels even more superstitious. They are looking for reassurance from people they see as "spiritual" and who say they have the ability to see into the future. It's mostly rubbish, but it's not going to go away.'
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