Psychic Fair
Noon-4 p.m. Sunday
Coffy's Café
1739 N.W. 16th
www.coffyscafe.org
604-8796
Organizers of the Psychic Fair at Coffy's Café want to be clear: There will be no spoon benders; no aged, wart-riddled hags putting hexes on thieving children; no snake-oil salesmen or swindlers preying on the desperate. In short, it's not as seen on TV.
"Hollywood has portrayed the intuitive arts in dark and mysterious ways," said Mark Maxey, a tarot card reader and event organizer. "All people have these abilities, just like everyone has the ability to play basketball, but some are just better equipped and more naturally talented. The same is true with your intuitive skills."
To help show the wide-ranging possibilities of the spiritual and the metaphysical, he helped put together the Psychic Fair as a way to give small tastes of a number of different techniques and ideologies, such as palm reading, triune brain theory, astrology, reiki and meditation.
Maxey said the participants come from different belief systems and use their intuitive skills as a supplement to their religion, instead of a replacement.
"We don't want you to give up your spiritual beliefs, but find what is best for you," he said.
Michael Lund and Cassie Shelton teach a class largely based on reiki, a Japanese healing technique sometimes called "palm healing." Shelton explained that the technique involves sensing the different areas of a person's body to find the source of a particular problem, like pain or congestion, and then "direct light" to that area. She said that reiki and other intuitive arts are good additions to traditional Western medicine, because they are focused on finding the root cause of medical problems.
"Traditional medicine treats the physical symptoms of things happening on the emotional and mental level," Shelton said. "A good example on that is people having issues with their thyroids. There tends to be communication issues in their life, either saying the things on their mind or even being honest with themselves."
Lund said the key for them as teachers and practitioners is to dispel the myth that the intuitive arts are just an abstract alternative medicine.
"It's not just a mystical experience; it's something very practical and real," he said. "There is something tangible that the person can take away from the experience. Anybody coming to get a reading or energy work done needs to have an open mind, and whatever comes to them will be very personal and something they can relate to."
Maxey said the best way to find a good teacher or practitioner of the intuitive arts is through word of mouth. With nationwide movements bringing the practices further into the mainstream, it's easier than ever to plug into a local community.
"These days, people are looking for more holistic ways to heal themselves, rather than just dumping a lot of pharmaceuticals into their body," Maxey said. "I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the medical profession, but I do think we need a mixture of Eastern and Western medicine to get complete healing." "Charles Martin
