Katjusa Cisar
Correspondent for The Capital Times ? 8/14/2007 10:14 am
A muggy mix of smells congeals this time of year at the top of State Street. Hot bus exhaust competes with the meaty aroma of Cornish pasties and cheddar popcorn.
But walk inside the newly-opened Psychic Gallery, 103 State St., and you're transported into a cool, tranquil storefront perfumed with incense. It's exactly the atmosphere that psychic Janet Merino says she 's aiming for in her new business.
"I want my clients to walk in and go 'ahh.' It's like going to a spa," she says.
Besides psychic readings, Merino reads tarot cards and palms and provides chakra balancing. She gave readings for 17 years in Northern California before moving here recently with her husband Ted, a Madison native who works in classic muscle car sales, and their children.
Merino says she comes from a long matriarchal line of clairvoyants, and never desired any other career but to follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.
At first she was hesitant to give up her well-established client base in California to move to Madison. "I told my husband the only way I'm going to leave is if I get a place on State Street, " she said.
She got lucky, literally overnight. At 3 a.m. one night in late June, she saw a listing for the State Street storefront on Craigslist. The next morning, rental negotiations were already under way with owners Daniel and Maria Milsted, who also rent to Myles' Teddywedgers and Clary's Gourmet Popcorn.
Merino can't attribute this luck to her psychic abilities, or even predict whether the Psychic Gallery will ultimately succeed, she says.
"I cannot read for myself or people I'm in love with. I think it's because I start to get confused by whether I'm psychically seeing something or if it's motherly instincts, " she said, adding, "I've had clients I got too close to and I couldn't see for them anymore. "
She also can't be read by other psychics and doesn't know why. "I'd love to be read, but it never comes out right."
While giving someone a psychic reading, she holds one of the person's personal items, like car keys or a cell phone, in her hands.
"It can't be something brand new," she adds, but an object that has absorbed the person's energy.
Clairvoyance is "far from a religion," said Merino, who was raised Catholic and now identifies as "on the cusp of being Christian and Catholic." Still, she says readings can help people find guidance in their personal life, and she's seen doubters turn into believers.
"A lot of people are confused, and having a reading done will help bring some clarity. Psychic readings are a way of helping people get back on track," she said.
Recently, a woman dragged her reluctant husband in for a reading.
"I had that man crying. Which doesn't make me happy, but we hit on a lot of things that happened in childhood, things his wife didn't know about," she said.
If people don't believe in her abilities, Merino doesn't try to convert. She just goes ahead with the reading.
"I'm the biggest skeptic there is. I'm from L.A. and everyone is out to get you there. I'm not here to change people 's minds or make people believers," she said.
She readily admits there are frauds in her line of work, and says one warning sign is any psychic who asks too many questions.
"When you come in for a reading, do not give out information. The person that claims to be psychic and says, 'Make three wishes and tell me two' or 'What do you want to know? ' That's the person you get up from and leave. I don't tell you what you want to hear, I tell you what I see," she said.
Complaints about fraudulent psychics come up on a regular basis, according to Glen Loyd of the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
"We don't see them every day, but they are kind of a classic scam. If someone tries to scare you and then asks for money to solve a problem, that should raise a red flag," said Loyd.
He can recall one psychic in the Green Bay area who was caught for telling customers their money was cursed. She would ask them to bring in thousands of dollars in cash, then sprinkle "holy water or magic powder" on the stash to make it disappear.
Diane Doughman, owner of Mimosa Bookstore, 260 W. Gilman St., says that deciding whether a psychic is good or not can be a "very subjective thing," but to be wary of anyone who tries to impress with "far out" predictions.
Mimosa's two in-house psychics went through a rigorous interview process, said Doughman.
"I look for well-grounded, very positive, professional people who aren't just one-dimensional," she added. Both of the in-house psychics have over 20 years experience and multiple certifications in a variety of disciplines, including tarot, palmistry, angel cradling, karmic relief, feng shui, aura imaging, magnified healing and dream interpretation.
"I think a psychic reader is part counselor. He has to have good experience in how to handle people," she said.
Doughman welcomes another psychic to the neighborhood and says it could indicate a growing interest in readings. She's been a business owner downtown since the 1980s and can 't think of any other storefront shop, until the Psychic Gallery, that relied solely on revenue from readings and energy work.
She hired full-time psychics at Mimosa one year ago, after reading in an industry trade journal that "it's a common thing for stores like ours to have that."
"The more people get introduced to psychic readings, the more likely they are to try out different psychics" or visit a variety of readers regularly, she said.
Merino opened shop in early July, but she's "nowhere near done" with decorating. The bare concrete floor awaits burgundy carpet, a handmade price sign hangs outside and her desk sits in a tangle of computer cords.
But psychics don't have much in the way of business overhead.
"All I need is to sit here. Everyone's kind of waiting for me to be all done setting up, for me to be centered. But it doesn t matter if I'm in a good mood or a bad mood, I can't turn off my abilities," she said on a recent afternoon, adding, "Today, I have a horrible headache, but my abilities are still there."
Business has been "very good," especially on the weekends. "I laugh -- there's lumber and drywall and people are literally climbing over and saying, 'I would like to have a reading.'"
One of the investments she is making is in artwork. She has commissioned local artist Rick Turvey to do 10 11x14 oil paintings of tarot cards and plans to display them in the window and around the space.
Turvey specializes in portraiture and for years set up shop at the Concourse Hotel downtown, where he made drawings for tourists. By his own count, he created 842 drawings and nine major paintings, all of which are "scattered throughout 36 states and six other countries."
Painting people has its similarities to reading people, says Turvey. When he first started painting faces, he thought the biggest challenge was capturing a "likeness. " Now he says he looks deeper for emotions, "what 's going on inside. "
"If I can convey in the paintings that there's more than what appears on the surface, then I've achieved the same thing," he said.
Merino says that everyone has psychic abilities to some degree, but that these premonitions often get downplayed as "just a deja vu" or a "good judge of character."
Turvey says he's been able to predict the future with his artwork, the first instance being the untimely death of Owen Kampen, his oil painting teacher in the commercial art program at Madison Area Technical College in the early '80s.
"I imagined for some odd reason doing a painting of a cemetery. I had the grim reaper in the background. I'd never done a painting like this, with this kind of subject matter. Two days later he died.
"I went back to the painting, and there were so many similarities between my painting teacher and the ghost. I've never had psychic powers, but they seem to come through in my work," he said.
After Turvey finishes the tarot paintings, he wants to be read by Merino. He's says he's very curious what the future holds for him as an artist.
Back in the beginning of his art school days, he read a book that prophesized no one could ever again achieve the high artistic levels of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo because of the current conditions in the world.
Turvey took this as a challenge. "I remember thinking I don't care how long it takes, I'm going to prove that author wrong. So one question (for Merino) would be: 'Will I ever get to that level?'"
And if the answer comes back negative?
"That's still OK, because I know I will have impacted the lives of a lot of people along the way with my work and raised two kids in part on my earnings from it," said Turvey.
http://www.madison.com/tct/business/205441
