Life

Play your (tarot) cards right: Ever wondered what your future holds? MM get spiritualist psychic reading

“It’s a bit like opening a Christmas present a day early or just taking a peek – some people just can’t wait to see what’ll happen.”

That’s according to the tarot reader sat across from me as I take my seat in a comfy living room in Greater Manchester, ready to have my fortunes laid out.

I’ve never been much of a great believer in spiritualism, or in fate, where it is possible the universe has planned a ‘path’ for us.

I also thought I had a strong grasp on what a visit to a fortune teller would be – a Romanian gypsy in a circus tent that screams ‘trippy Santa’s grotto’.

Yet, despite some scepticism, here I sit opposite a friendly Mancunian, cup of tea in hand and a dog asleep on the sofa apparently giving off ‘energy’ likes it’s going out of fashion.

When asked how she got into tarot reading, she explains it came from knowing she has ‘the gift’ and that it’s been something she has had since her childhood.

“I would get this funny feeling and I could hear these voices all chatting together – I thought I was going mad because I was only little,” she says.

“I thought ‘I can’t tell anybody’ because I was convinced I was mad so what would anyone else think?”

Eventually, she overcame her timidity and has turned a talent into a profession.

“My work now is a mixture of telling people what’s in their future, and passing on messages from beyond,” she explains.

I resist the urge to ask if any deceased relatives are present with a message and instead request that we plough ahead with a reading.

After our brief chat, the woman who knows nothing about me beyond my first name dives into her zone and resurfaces, hitting the bullseye with her first arrow.

“Have you always wanted to live in America or is this just a recent thing?”

The temptation to lie is overwhelming, but I am slightly taken aback by the suddenness of the question so utter a slightly feeble and honest ‘always’. 

Hiding the satisfied smile, she returns to ‘tuning in’; eyes closed, awaiting her next vision as the silence around becomes deafening.

While tarot readings usually involve the use of 100 picture cards, the tuned-in spiritualist on the next sofa insists she uses them mainly as a guide for helping her with her readings, but they are not obligatory.

Instead, we sit for almost an hour of silence as chilling as it is uncomfortable, interspersed with my reader’s visions taking oral form.

If the first question was a bullseye, the ensuing ones are slightly more erratic but rather than claim a wayward arrow, the reader claimed the target had not been built yet.

Metaphors aside, she speaks of an important ‘Anthony’ in my professional life.

When I tell her I don’t know an Anthony, I am expecting to look up and see a puzzled expression rather than a knowing smile and the prediction that ‘not yet, but you will do’.

From the mysterious Anthony (he drives a Bentley if you’re wondering), the visions move on to a psychiatric hospital.

While the reader can’t say for certain whether it is me checking into the hospital that she is seeing rather than anything else, it definitely piques my interest and leads me to think: ‘Hang on, I’m not the one hearing voices in my head.’

After worryingly hearing of my potential future in the Funny Farm, her visions move through the topics from why I fear my editor, an upcoming birthday party for my brother-in-law in which cocktail-induced confessions will run amok and eventually to visions of my dad and I golfing in Bermuda.

If my ‘energy’ is indeed forecasting my future life, it certainly will not be boring, filled with the exotic golf holidays and calling the Nut Factory home. Good times and bad, that’s life.

I might have unintentionally stumbled across some wisdom there.

I would be lying to say that I was entirely taken in by my mystical voyage, though while the scepticism remains it has made new friends in frustration and impatience.

For now though, it’s time to sit on my hands and, having taken a peek at the Christmas present of my future, wait to see what of it comes to pass.

Image courtesy of Kelly Cookson, via Flickr, with thanks

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