Published: May 29, 2007 12:16 am            

Wonders of spring

Rhododendrons, renewed relationships, and a rush on psychics

DERRY, N.H. — A war in Iraq. A troubled housing market. A season for graduations and weddings.

There's a lot of uncertainty in the world and it has increasingly driven local people to psychics.

"I think, in a lot of ways, we're a poor man's psychiatrist," said Donna Marie Watts, a psychic reader and the owner of Gardinia's Book Store in Derry, N.H.

Spring is a peak season for psychic readings, Watts said.

Lent | which typically keeps Catholics out of psychic parlors, she said | is over. Beltaine, a May 1 Celtic holiday celebrating the beginning of summer, has arrived. And people everywhere are going through changes in their lives.

"Springtime has a lot to do with relationships," Watts said.

Philip Hart, a professor of religion and philosophy at Plymouth (N.H.) State University, agreed.

"Any season heavy with ritual would ... be good for psychics," he said. "Tremendous change can be disturbing."

Southern New Hampshire is dotted with New Age-style businesses. From West Broadway in Derry to South Broadway in Salem, numerous small shops and businesses offer psychic readings, often in combination with New Age classes and books on spiritual topics.

"I think the general appeal of psychics lies in the fact that they fall in what, religiously, has always been called mysticism," Hart said. "Mysticism is a religious element that exists in just about every world religion, profoundly so in Christianity ... (and) in all of those cases (mysticism) talks about the unity of one individual with everything else."

That's not something people typically get from their church, mosque or synagogue, according to Hart. The mystics of each faith are typically kept out of the orthodox church, he said.

And that leaves those searching for a sense of unity | or who want to put spiritual power to productive use | to seek out psychics.



Trust yourself first

For Janice Tarver, a medium and psychic, the abilities have very little to do with supernatural powers. Psychics and mediums are just people who trust the instincts we all naturally have, according to Tarver.

Tarver moved to San Antonio, Texas, four years ago, but still does telephone readings for New Hampshire people through a local phone line. Her business is called Somewhere in Time.

Lately, Tarver has found herself counseling parents who have lost children in the Iraq war. And her role has not been that of a fortuneteller, she said. It has been more akin to that of a priest or a therapist.

"You can't help but grieve with them," she said.

That's a reality she sometimes has trouble explaining to new clients | that she doesn't intend to demonstrate supernatural abilities to anyone; she only wants to offer guidance.

"People are looking for answers that, I believe, are within themselves," she said.

Amy Reinert, a psychic and medium in Windham, agreed.

"I think a lot of people look at it as, sort of, magic tricks. And it's not that at all," said Reinert, who doesn't charge for her readings and seldom does them for strangers.



The skepticism

But the nature of the psychic business turns many people off.

"Of course, there's a cynicism because psychics are about charging money, which breeds a great deal of skepticism immediately," said Hart, of Plymouth State.

Ann Hentz, a tarot card reader at Circles of Wisdom in Andover, Mass., even goes so far as to warn against psychic scam artists.

"I think if they come up with a scheme where you can give them more money and they can make everything all better, that's a red flag," she said.

Hentz once got a reading, she said, and was told that for another $50 the psychic would pray for her. She declined.

Circles of Wisdom charges between $70 and $100 per hour for readings, Hentz said. Many customers pay half that by opting for half-hour sessions, she said.

But even if a customer trusts the psychic she or he is going to, Hentz cautions that the reading should be viewed skeptically.

"A tarot reading, and a psychic reading, is a snapshot of the energies around a situation at a particular moment," Hentz said. "If you don't like what you see in a tarot reading ... it is not cast in concrete."

But often, many psychics and mediums say, the result of a reading can be extremely positive.

Reinert, of Windham, said she once met with a nurse who had been ill.

"Why the resistance to changing doctors?" Reinert said she asked.

The nurse explained that she personally knew the doctor she'd been seeing, and didn't want to leave. But after her reading, the nurse got a second opinion, which revealed that she had liver disease, according to Reinert.



Widespread acceptance

Psychic readings have steadily gained more acceptance since the modern movement began in the 1970s, according to Tarver, Hart and others.

"I can see the shift in consciousness, where people are starting to perceive that there is something to this," Tarver said.

Television shows like "Crossing Over with John Edward," which is now being revived on WE as "John Edward Cross Country," has put the idea of mediums on the edge of mainstream.

But even with greater acceptance, psychics and mediums still hover at the fringe of spiritual life. Tarver, the San Antonio-based medium, said she felt driven from working full time four years ago.

"I had to prove myself to everybody all the time, and I got tired of doing that," she said of her decision to scale back her business.

In the early 1990s, a fundamentalist Christian group tried to convince the Hampstead Planning Board that Tarver shouldn't be allowed to work as a psychic from her home, Tarver said. Their effort ultimately failed, she said.

But while psychic readings certainly aren't mainstream, many of the small parlors and shops that dot the area are successful businesses. Gardinia's has been in business for seven years, for instance. Circles of Wisdom, in Andover, Mass., has been in operation for 13 years.

And Hart, the Plymouth State professor, said that trend will likely continue. The drive to visit psychics, he said, stems from the same spiritual need that drives people to other spiritual guides.

"We all sense slightly, very slightly, maybe unconsciously ... that we are connected much more to that which is imminent | that is, you and I to other people, to rocks and trees, nature, and, perhaps, even to God | than we'd normally think," he said.



Gordon Fraser writes for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass.

        

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