 "Photo: Josh Chaney")
According to Miss Brenda, a psychic working in Zanesville, I'm having trouble in my love life, will end up working with numbers and will probably go back to Iraq for a second time.
"But I'm an English major," I protested. "I hate numbers, I've gotten a D in math as long as I can remember."
"Maybe it's stocks or investments, but I see you working for a big business and moving lots of money in and out of your bank accounts," she said.
On a chilly Monday afternoon before Thanksgiving break, I visited a psychic for the first time in my life. I took fellow staff writer Ben Weiner along just in case anything happened. We weren't quite sure what would 'happen,' but maybe I have this false assumption that psychics can not only can read your future, but possibly perform spells on you. Maybe I figured if I was turned into a frog, Ben would quickly put me in his pocket and take me to the hospital.
I wasn't a skeptic or a believer. I was really just indifferent and figured that seeing a psychic would be fun. Plus, it was free since the newspaper was reimbursing me.
If she was a true psychic, I thought that I wouldn't have to do anything. Right before my hand knocked on the door she would open it and say, "Hi, you're from the Muskingum College newspaper and you've come here to interview me and get a reading because you thought it'd be fun and they're reimbursing you anyway." I would nod 'yes' and she would say, "You didn't have to bring fellow staff writer Ben Weiner along, I will not transform you into a frog." I would say, 'thank you, that's a relief."
Of course, it doesn't work this way. After walking into her business, which is in her home, we introduced ourselves and I told her I wanted the cheapest reading. She was about 5'5", had black, long hair, wore a white tank top and seemed to be in her thirties. She said she could give me a reading from a half a deck of Tarot cards for $20. Tarot cards are a deck of 72 cards used by people, especially psychics, to help determine their future and give them guidance. The cards have different pictures with symbols or people on them and according to www. allabouttheoccult.com, the origin of Tarot cards is unknown, but some speculate they were developed by gypsies.
So she decided that since one of her children, maybe a 1-year-old, wouldn't stop crying, she would have to hold him while she gave the reading, and for this distraction she would read me a full deck of Tarot cards. I took the great deal and we went into the room where she does these readings.
In this small room were two chairs with a flimsy table in between them. She sat on the far side and I on the other. On the table were some colored rocks, a deck of Tarot cards and some Crucifix statues. Against the wall across from the table was a shelf filled with pictures of her family, statues and pictures of the Virgin Mary and other religious symbols.
She had me pick three cards from the Tarot deck and give them to her. She immediately started laying the cards out in a triangular shape. At this point she informed me that she would tell me everything, both good and bad. I nodded, "Absolutely."
It started off well.
"I see that you'll live a long life," she said. "You're a nice person, but sometimes you're taken advantage of."
She began asking me questions about where I live and what I'm doing in school. She told me that I'd be working with lots of money and numbers. I completely disagreed with her, but she insisted that's what she saw. She said I'd end up in a bigger city and have one child out of wedlock and two children in wedlock from the same woman.
Throughout the reading I found her giving predictions and assumptions about me, and then she'd ask very specific questions. I'd answer and she'd make specific assumptions and predictions according to what I'd said. For many of the predictions, I really won't know if she was right for at least a few years. Although I disagreed with some of the predictions, I was satisfied and thought she covered all aspects of my life-love, friendships, school and career.
Miss Brenda, who did not give her last name, was born and raised in Zanesville and was home-schooled by her parents. She said being a psychic is her full-time job and she makes her living off of it.
"I've been giving psychic readings since I was 2, professionally since I was 10," she said. "I read from the Tarot, from the crystal, a lot of different readings that I just use actual things that I can hold in your hands, but I also get visions at the same time, that's how come there's accuracy there."
Because of privacy issues, she would not tell me if she had any regular clients from Muskingum College or how many clients she had per week.
"My business comes from word of mouth. It's completely private," she said.
She said that it takes years of studying and training to become a working psychic. Although she's had visions since she was 2, she spent many years studying and learning from other members in her family.
"It's not all in the head. You do have to study," she said. "It's not something that you can just hop into. It takes years and years of experience and years and years of learning, you have to have special teachers to work with you, people who work with Holistic healing, things in that sort, it's not an easy thing to get into."
Miss Brenda said that being a psychic doesn't help her in her own life. She cannot see visions about herself. She plans to stay in Zanesville as a psychic.
As far as the doubters were concerned, she had a clear answer for them.
"I love skeptics," she said, "because I can always prove them wrong."
