Psychic path

You know that televangelist lady with the unbelievably large, pinkish-blonde hairdo—the one from Trinity Broadcasting Network? Her name's Jan Crouch.

“Jarja,” my dad used to holler from the other room whenever Crouch was on TV, moving her head around like a tranquilized swan. “Git in here. HURRY.”

“What, Dad, what? Is everything OK?”

He was doing the silent chuckle by then, tears streaming down his face as he pointed toward the screen. “It’s the … it’s the Christian channel!”

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I’d reply between gasps of laughter. “Please tell me you’re taping this one.”

The other day, I started sounding a little like Dad. I’d found some promotional material for the Reno Psychic Fair on Oct. 26 and 27, and summoned my fiancé.

“Matt. MATT. Please come be at my computer with me. It’s … urgent.”

“Whoa, what’s the matter?”

“Just hurry. Quick.”

Matt chortled a minute later as he read over my shoulder: “Come to the Fall 2013 Reno Psychic Fair and celebrate all the wonderful healing information exploding onto the planet in 2013. As we spiritualize the physical with the downpouring of spiritual energy and vibrations, our bodies have to be able to channel the higher frequencies.”

“Exploding,” I added, in case he’d missed it the first time. “Vi-bray-shuns.”

“So you’re going to this?”

“Duh. Plus your parents’ll be in town! We should totally bring them.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

I wound up going alone, which was fine, but I had just 90 minutes to burn. This meant skipping the workshops, unfortunately, which covered everything from “crystal singing bowls” to understanding “The Sun, the Christ Force.”

I headed straight for the fair’s regular booths and vendors instead.

An acquaintance told me the experience is a “sensory overload,” and she was right—such an overload, in fact, that time slid away as I reconciled the smell of incense and the lilt of flute music in an otherwise typical exhibition room at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. With ballroom carpet and wholly normal-looking people milling around, it could’ve been anywhere, save for the blinking lights. And the tie-dyed outfits, “channeled” lotions, exquisite polished rocks and “magyck candles” for sale. That, and a handsome man with a fauxhawk and filigreed, Western-style bell-bottoms. I kept seeing him strut around. And—oh crap, hang on a second.

I hadn’t seen Stan Morey yet.

“Hello,” I blurted when I settled upon a grinning, heavily bearded guy in a three-piece ensemble and ornately festooned velvet hat.

Billed as “the Steampunk Psychic,” Morey was perched contentedly by the most elaborate display I saw that afternoon: A huge vinyl sign proclaiming his craft, a complex rack of beeswax candles hand-rolled by a friendly woman named Modesta (Morey’s partner in life and business), plastic baubles, and enough Christmas lights to threaten a seizure on my part.

For $10, he gave me a “three-stone compass reading,” which boils down to an unusual process with a basis in tarot. Instead of cards, however, you draw myriad gemstones from a box, and concentrate on several questions: “Where am I now?” “How did I get here?” and “Where am I headed?”

It’s more complex than that, though, as Morey’s approach is enmeshed in quantum physics and the notion that energy itself is a sentient thing, and open to suggestion. A self-fulfilling prophesy, such as “I think I’m getting the flu,” can be a manipulation of reality, he told me.

“Energy is aware on some level,” Morey said. “And as a result, sentient energy seeks to reinforce itself through constructive interference, so instead of canceling out—”

He interrupted himself.

“You’re looking confused. Did you sleep through high school science?”

I nodded, tool-like, as a nearby didgeridoo player starting generating a low, undulating groan. I had the attention span of a gnat.

All told, Morey had an uplifting message.

“You are in a relationship,” he said, “with a divine, creative force. Call it God, Buddha, Jesus, Goddess, Quaker-Baker-Candlestick-Maker … your spirit is in a relationship with a creative force that’s in you and all around. Life is all about relationships, so start participating in them.”

Taken in sum, the gemstones I picked—blue tourmaline, sardonyx and opal— supposedly suggest truth-seeking and infinite possibilities. Granted, it’s not like the man was going to tell me I’d break my neck on the way home.

He did peg me as “noncommittal,” however.

“You tend to go one step forward,” he continued, “and then you shrink back. You do that in your relationships, too, and it drives people crazy.”

I squirmed, fiddling with my engagement ring.

He gave me a pointed look.

“Quit playing silly-buggers.”

I’m not a silly-bugger about commitment itself, but could certainly stand to be kinder and more considerate in general. That’s worth $10 even from a scam artist—which Morey isn’t, in my opinion. Whatever your take on his rock compasses, they’re compelling because he believes in them.

My next interviewee/reader of things was Eda Hatfield, a peppy, pretty older woman bedecked in purple fabric and white crystals. Her booth sported a lavender mosquito net that touched the ceiling, which was more than enough to win my favor.

Overall, her message was one of beaming positivity. I have an abundantly friendly energy, she said, and a desire to learn all I can. Success is imminent.

Nice. As for my relationship, though—hrmm.

“I’ll give you some advice,” Hatfield clucked in a grandmotherly fashion. “Just don’t jump.”

No way, I thought with an inward smirk. I jumped long ago and have never looked back. Oh, well.

As the day drew to a close, some of the tighter-knit vendors geared up for a traditional, post-psychic-fair sushi dinner (the Moreys have only made the invite list in recent years, they told me good naturedly). And Markus Thorndike, the guy in the flashy bell-bottoms, offered to read my palm and fingerprints.

“’Scuse me,” he said, licking his finger and then pressing on mine. “You’ve got a lot of wrinkles.”

Among other things, he suggested I shed my old demons, particularly shame and misguided expectations. Right on.

Bay Area native Laura Peppard founded the biannual fair and its parent organization, the Reno Psychic Institute, back in the '90s. She runs a metaphysical gift shop called Mystic Rose, too, and hosts all manner of events and classes at the institute, which is under the same roof on Hillcrest Drive. Every Tuesday, for that matter, anyone who's curious can show up for a free “energy healing clinic.”

Peppard started the organization, she said, because “I needed people to talk to who understood where I was coming from.”

Years ago, “I just thought I was weird, or that something was not right about me. Then I went to the Berkeley Psychic Institute, and understood those capabilities better.”

But what about the age-old cliché of hoaxers peddling snake oil? Does Peppard think everyone working the psychic fair is legit?

“People criticize psychics very readily,” she answered, “but everybody’s experienced a doctor or lawyer who ripped them off. I leave the door open to a lot of different things.” And yes, she admitted, she’s kicked a few folks out for being unethical.

As for psychic ability in general, “everyone else is so busy pretending it doesn’t exist,” she said with a wry laugh.

“I think it’s real,” I offered. At least it’s something I want to believe, in theory; maybe a few people are clairvoyant after all, if only because the world is such a mystery to an agnostic like me. If I can’t explain why we’re here, then I can’t discount everyone else’s ideas about the universe and such. Right?

Or hell, maybe it’s just nice to have someone like Eda tell you you’re unstoppable. I’ll take it.