Confessions
of a Psychic
New Woman Magazine, July 1997
Judi Hoffman
sits at a table in her brightly lit Manhattan duplex, drinking coffee with nonfat
creamer while she studies the cards. With her long, manicured nails, thick, dark
hair, and deep tan, she looks more like someone you would run into at the gym
than one of the most respected psychics working today. In fact, her clientele
includes doctors, lawyers, real estate magnates, and others you would think to
be too skeptical. She's often so busy, it can take a month to get an appointment.
Using regular playing cards, she gives clients predictions for the next two to
three years. She is brusque, funny, and decidedly earthy.
She is also spookily
accurate. A month before the crash of TWA Flight 800 off of Long Island, New York,
she told a friend of mine not to fly TWA because she'd had a dream about one of
their flights turning over.
Before our interview, she read my cards. Among
other things, she predicted a trip to Washington, DC, that I hadn't even told
my husband I would have to take. She knew about my daughter's shyness, my specific
work problems, and, she says, future successes. I couldn't help but want to know
more.
Q. When did you first suspect you were psychic?
A. I started
getting interested in astronomy when I was 5, and I always loved playing with
the Ouija board, but the first huge weird thing that happened was when I was about
16 or 17. I dreamed that two 746s collided. I went downstairs and told my mother,
and a few hours later the new reports came in about two 747s colliding in the
Canary Islands.
Q. That must have freaked you out.
A. A lot
of psychics start with negative dreams. One of the reasons I think people turn
it off is that it's frightening. It was scary that my dream was SO specific and
that I had a witness. It's a calling, not something I planned to do. I was a high
school English teacher for years. People just started asking me if I would do
a reading; then, about eight years ago, I was able to start doing it full-time.
I can't even believe it myself, but I love what I do. I love being right. I'm
told I'm right about 65 to 85 percent of the time.
Q. Where does it
come from?
A. I think 95 percent is a gift from God or a greater power.
Most people have a portion of that gift. The other 5 percent I was forced to develop
like a muscle because of my circumstances at home. I had to be on the look out
for things to happen. I was the oldest of three, and I felt very protective of
my brother and sister. I became hypervigilant of when my mother was upset or my
father was angry so I could change my behavior accordingly. I wasn't able to prevent
any disputes, but I think it made me extra sensitive.
Q. When did you
realize you could predict things for other people that would come true?
A.
When I came to New York at the age of 25, I had a roommate who was an actress
on daytime soaps. I'd look at the cards and tell her, "You're going to move to
Florida." It was bizarre because she was on her way to success here. But a year
and a half later, she met a guy from Florida, married him, and moved there. I
also predicted a second marriage for her, which wasn't pleasant for her to hear
at the time of her first, let me tell you.
Q. What does it feel like?
A. Some things come to me in dreams, but usually I need a person to work with.
The cards are my guide, and they give me a focal point, but I can do it without
them. I think people would be uncomfortable if I just sat there and stared at
them. I balance the feelings I get from the person with what the cards say. For
instance, if you get four tens, it usually means you're in business for yourself,
but I may discount that if I get a different sense from the client. I sort of
hear something. I think it comes through my left ear. It's not a radio broadcast-it's
an idea of hearing something, like a feeling. I allow my self to begin to speak
and whatever comes out of my mouth, I trust is going to be right. I'm not a visual
person, so I don't get many visions, and I don't like to touch clients because
it would be too overwhelming by the end of the day. Sometimes it's overwhelming
anyway, because I pick up people's energy. I like to swim or take a bath to get
it off of me.
Q. What do you pick up from body signals and how people
are dressed?
A. I won't discount any clue I get from the person, but that's
not what I do. I could spend half the reading telling you about your personality
from how you cut the cards, but I make an assumption that you know what your personality
is. I have clients I've never laid eyes on; some of the phone readings I do are
the most accurate. As soon as we start talking I just get a sense. That's really
mysterious to me.
Q. Are some people easier to read?
A. I like
reading skeptics. I like to prove myself. I had one guy who was referred by a
woman who he had dated. I didn't know anything about him, but when he sat down
I said, "You are an attorney by education, but you went to business school and
now you're an investment banker." That was absolutely accurate. I also predicted
he would relocate to where he now lives. Someone who has run around to 80 different
psychics can be harder; they keep waiting for me to levitate. And if someone's
too nervous, it may interfere.
Q. What do you find hardest to predict?
A. My area of greatest accuracy is things of an earthly pragmatic nature. I tell
my clients I'm a "what and when" psychic. Are you going to move? What will you
do to create money? When they ask me, "Why hasn't he called?" I go mute. Who the
hell knows why? Some psychics think they know the "whys," but my belief is only
God knows why or maybe other professionals like psychoanalysts. Three-quarters
of my clients are women, and they always want to know if they're going to meet
someone. They'll come back and say, "I got the new job, but where's the biggie?"
Maybe matters of the heart take longer, but the predictions do eventually come
true. I told one woman who was in her early 20s and very distraught about an engagement
breaking, up that she would meet a guy named Mike. I told her he wore a uniform
for work. He turned out be a Marine. I said she would meet him swimming. She met
him at the pool of her local Y, and she married him.
Q. Do you ever just roll your eyes at what people ask you?
A. Oh my gosh, yes. People get obsessed by wanting things I can see that they're not going to get. I told a woman recently at least 15 times in the reading that the man she was involved with was not going to leave the other woman for her. She just could not hear what I was saying. But I repeatedly give disclaimers. I'll tell them, "Prove me wrong. I'm not God."
Q. So you don't believe in fate?
A. A reading is an outline based on where you are that day. There are certain immutable events that you can't bypass. I believe your birth date and your death date are predetermined. There may be some dates in between that you can't change, like when you have a child. But there are others that you have a choice about. I wish I knew which was which. One woman was driving me bananas about where she was going to get an apartment. I finally got an image of an exact address-and that's where she ended up moving. Did I influence her to say to a broker that she wanted an apartment at that address, or was it meant to be? I don't know.
Q. Do you ever warn people not to date someone?
A. Yes. There are times when I've read the cards and thought, You have got to stop this. A client was seeing a man who wasn't that interested in her, and I saw the tables were going to turn. I told her, "It's going to be so bad you're going to have to peel him off the wall." I didn't tell her what she should or shouldn't do, but I kept saying, "I don't like this man." She called the other day to say she has reported him to the police because he's stalking her now.
Q. Are there things that you see in a reading that you don't tell the client?
A. There have been times when I've known there will be no real chance, no real hope. But I don't tell people their whole life isn't going to work out. I'm very gentle. You're in a vulnerable position when you get a reading. I'm not a death-predicting psychic. But if there's a way to prevent it, I will say something. I had a client whose son was a drug addict, and I told her if she didn't take action he was a suicide waiting to happen. There was an intervention, and he was clearly suicidal in hindsight. I will tell people about diseases if I see them arising--but always with the disclaimer that I'm not a doctor. I'll usually phrase it by saying they might want to get a certain area of their body checked out.
Q. What if it's not preventable?
A. I won't say, "Here's your pending death." None of us wants to know that. But sometimes it comes up. I did a whole reading once before the client asked, "But what about my husband?" I didn't know she was married, and I was mad at myself for not seeing it. I had to admit, "I don't see a husband." He committed suicide a month later. That was spooky.
Q. Do you ever doubt your predictions?
A. Sometimes. I had a woman client who I predicted would get together with a man she already knew, though she didn't know he was interested in her. I was dubious because I saw her as someone who was terribly hooked on unavailable men. But everything I described, from how she knew him to his age, was accurate. I predicted almost the exact date they got married. Readings aren't logical; life isn't logical. That's why I have to keep my conscious mind out of it.
Q. Do people become too dependent on you?
A. I won't allow that. A woman called me recently, and she kept saying it was an emergency. You shouldn't see a psychic when you feel it's an emergency; you should see a psychiatrist. I'm not going to change your life. I'm not going to fix you. I don't encourage people to come more than about once a year. When enough of the predictions have come true, you'll know it's time to come back.
Q. Are there times when it just doesn't come?
A. My only variable is how much rest I have. I ready have to take care of my gift and give it time off. If people pester me on the weekends, or friends call and say, "Tell me if he's going to call me," I won't answer. During readings, I can't have another person in the apartment. Music upstairs bothers me, and the room has to be brightly lit so I can focus.
Q. Can you turn it on and off?
A. Not entirely. I tell it, just the way you would tell a secretary to hold your calls, not to speak to me for ten minutes. When we finish this interview I'm going to go get my nails done, and I'll say to it, "You're on the shelf. Unless I'm in clear and present danger, please don't attack me right now." But sometimes the little voice speaks up anyway. And if I keep all the information inside, I get migraines from the tension of not expressing myself.
Q. Can you ask for a dream if you want to know the answer to something?
A. Yes, I can try. The mind has three drawers: the conscious, the subconscious, and the unconscious. The unconscious has predictions, stuff about your past life, answers to seemingly, unanswerable questions. I access it by commanding what I call "my little man" to go into that bottom drawer. I also make the command that I remember the dream in the morning.
Q. Does it work?
A. Not necessarily. Sometimes it's too cryptic. I can't really control it. If I could, I'd get the lottery numbers.
Q. Can you see your own life clearly?
A. No. It's like trying to cut your own hair. Occasionally I've had prescient dreams, but they're not terribly accurate. Maybe it's a built-in protection device, My conscious mind interferes, and what I want gets confused with what I see or don't see.
Q. How does being psychic affect your love life?
A. Like every woman, I don't necessarily listen, even though there's this voice that warns, "This isn't going to work out." I was seeing a man recently whom I met in the islands. It was a whirlwind romance. I came home from the first trip, and I could see that it wasn't going to last more than six months, but I still went shopping at the Vera Wang sample sale for a wedding gown. Sure enough, it ended in four and a half months. I can diagnose what's going on with others, but I'm blind when it comes to myself. I did have a vision about two years ago, that I would be in my late 30s before I found the right person-but I'm still waiting. From my mouth to God's ears.
Q. What burdens does your gift bring?
A. I do get a sense of responsibility and guilt about disasters. I had a dream that there will be an earthquake in Bogota, Colombia, that hasn't happened yet. I wish there was a way I could avert it, but what are you going to do? Evacuate Bogota? You can't go around alarming people. With the TWA dream, I tried to call any client who I thought might be traveling, and when I heard about the crash I was tormented by the fear that I might have missed someone.
Q. Why do you think there's a surge of interest in psychic phenomena now?
A. Historically, at the time of every century people have been into this stuff. Then, because of the collapse of the economy in 1989, a lot of people came to me who wanted to get jobs and would turn anywhere. People also marry later now, so the pregnancy question is really big.
Q. What do you make of all the psychic hot lines?
A. They're illegitimate. Maybe some of the people who started them had some abilities, but I know the people who are doing the lines are not psychics. They're doing it for minimum wage. It plays upon people's desperation. It drives me crazy.
Q. What about the gypsies at carnivals?
A. I've heard horror stories about them telling people, "You have a cloud on your head. Bring me four thousand dollars to take the curse off of you." You should never believe someone can alter your life if you give them more money.
Q. How can people spot a fraud?
A. You should be told a set fee, and the minute that person says it's higher, run out the door. You should also be referred by another person. I wouldn't go to a dentist who I didn't hear gave my girlfriend a good cap, and I wouldn't go to a psychic whose predictions I didn't hear came true.
Emily Listfteld lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. Her new novel, The Last Good Night, is being published this month by Little, Brown and Company.
CALL 212-534-6279 to schedule an appointment for your psychic reading with Judi Hoffman, Celebrity Psychic.
