The
Psychic Explosion
By
Katherine Russell Rich excerpted from: Allure Magazine, September 1993.
Katherine Russell Rich is the author of "The Red Devil: To Hell With Cancer and
Back".
The American self-help movement is a true religious power yet to
be reckoned with, psychologist William James observed, about the time he was roundly
drubbed by the scientific community for having taken up with the Spiritualists.
That was a hundred years back, and talk shows have now brought the reckoning to
pass. Just three years in, the 1990s have become the era of supra-self-help, the
decade when all trends combined into one, in the person of the psychics turning
up where you'd least expect them: at body shops, in boutiques, health spas, and
hair salons.
Two years running, Barneys New York has gone into the mystic
for its window displays, exhibiting a live fortuneteller one month, a tea-leaf
theme another. At the Green Valley Spa in St. George, Utah, guests can presumably
find out how long they'll keep it off in a consult with the resident forecaster.
Always up to the minute, but now Canyon Ranch in Arizona offers past life regression
on its option plan.
As the New Age shows no sign of growing old, psychics
are becoming uber- personal trainers, instantly, gratifying advisers on all problems,
including abs and thighs. "'Will I look different a year from now?' is how they
put it when they want to know if they're going to lose weight," says New York
reader Judi Hoffman, who also forecasts hair-color changes.
"Hairdresser,
shrink, psychic," a friend says, listing her "necessary support crew in order
of who I'd cancel for who." Down in SoHo, at N.Y.M.P.H., a paranormally hip Manhattan
hair salon, it's one-stop booking. Get a cut and one day a week meet Elaine Woodall,
who was an art history professor until 13 years ago, when she began having occult
visions and decided to take up other work. Now half the time she's a shrink; the
other half she gives readings to the newly shorn and sighted.
Historically,
psychics become the preferred means of access during economic crunches, wars (even
short ones), and when a new administration comes in. Get the picture? Hoffman's
had to hire an assistant to book appointments, 12 weeks in advance.
"It's
the biggest wave since I've been in," she says. "An astrologer said it's going
to continue through 2001." Impending centennials are also good for business. Last
fin de sicle, the Victorians went haywire with mediums, spirit writers, "nervousness,
decadence, boredom and thrill seeking, suicide and Ferris wheels," Hillel Schwartz
writes in Century's End. We're within sight of the big 000, so we can expect to
see all that wackiness again, times ten. Anyway, they just reissued the Ouija
board.
And the Victorians didn't have TV. To a generation raised on the
tube and therapy, psychic counseling is a natural: easy answers in 30 minutes.
In
contemporary Manhattan, even decisions about face-lifts can turn on a card throw,
according to Hoffman, who is asked about them so often that she has devised an
elective-surgery spread of the cards. In the main, though, it's love and money,
followed by every dilemma imaginable.
CALL 212-534-6279 to schedule an appointment for your psychic reading with Judi Hoffman, Celebrity Psychic.
