When it comes to psychics, we all fall into three distinct camps.
First, there are the believers, who believe anything that comes from a psychic’s mouth is akin to expert advice: profound and important and life-changing. These are the people who treat spirituality – the health of their soul – as paramount to their wellbeing. Basically, their psychic is as important as their GP.
Then we have the neutrals. The people in this group are not exactly sure if they believe psychics, but why the hell not give it a go? These are the people who have been dragged to readings and appointments by their friends and who – despite mild protests – kinda find themselves enjoying the whole thing.
Last of all, we have the cynics, the ones who absolutely, wholeheartedly reject the possibility that a lucky handful of people can predict the future, and pity those who think they can.
Listen: Debbie Malone is a psychic detective. (Post continues…)
Chances are you clicked into this post because you belong in one of the first two groups. Even if you’re skeptical, there’s a slither – a tiny part of you – that humours the chance that, yes, psychics might be legitimate.
We went around the Mamamia office and collected the stories from women who have been to psychics in recent years.
So, we asked them, how the hell did your psychic’s biggest predictions for your life turn out?
The cancer prediction – Sheryl, 55
“I see clairvoyants every 18 months or so just to see how I’m tracking, but there’s one particular experience that’s always stayed with me.
About 10 years ago, I was at a little market fair and I was waiting to see a psychic. I had my name down but there were a lot of people waiting before me. I don’t know why, but I was drawn to another psychic nearby so decided to go over to her.
I sat down and she asked me had my mother passed over to the other side. I said no, and she replied, ‘Well, have you spoken to her recently to see how she’s going?’ As she was saying this, she kept moving her hand over her right hip and down towards her lower back. ‘I keep getting a real strong pain around here’, she told me. ‘I don’t know whether your mother’s had a fall or if she’s hurt herself in the garden’, so she said, casually, ‘Make sure you ask her’.
I didn’t really think further about it after that day. Actually, her comments to do with my mum didn’t sink in until about six months later, when my mum called to say she had to go into hospital.
The morning of her operation I rang her and asked if she had something wrong with her back or her hip. She said, ‘Yes, they’ve told me I’ve got bowel cancer’. She thought she’s just strained herself gardening.
I’ll always believe the clairvoyant could sense mum’s cancer before any of us did.”
The pregnancy prediction – Anna, 23
“I’m a neutral, but my boyfriend’s mother SWEARS by her psychic, she’s been seeing her for over a decade now. No judgement, she’s just a very spiritual, lovely, generous woman who enjoys that stuff; she says it nourishes her.
Anyway, when I first started dating her son, she went to her regular psychic appointment and mentioned her first-born had a new girlfriend and it looked pretty serious.
‘Your son and his new girlfriend will fall pregnant within two years of knowing each other,’ the psychic told her. Needless to say, my boyfriend’s mum came home and grilled us both about what contraception we were using and said that we’re ‘way, way, way too young for that just yet’ for the better part of 18 months. (Totally agreed with her, by the way, we’re still only 23.)
This month actually marks two years since we met and THANK GOODNESS, no pregnancy yet. I’m very glad the psychic was wrong about that one.”
The moving in together prediction – Cate, 30
“My psychic actually guessed that I worked at Mamamia! She had been to the office before, but we didn’t meet then, and somehow she just knew from the moment we met.
She then asked, ‘Why am I picking up that you live near your office?’and I explained my boyfriend lives very close by, to which she said, ‘He’s going to ask you to move in very soon.’
A week later I was on holiday and I got a text from him saying he wanted me to move in! I couldn’t believe how quickly her prediction came true.”
The boyfriend prediction - Sue, 27
"I totally trust my psychic because she was an old colleague of mine and I just instinctively know she's for real.
One of the main things she's 'seen' in our meetings was my boyfriend holding a baby. She described him as looking and feeling unsure of how to be a good father. Because he's not close with his own dad, she said that I will need to help my partner, by reassuring him that he can choose what type of dad to be and he'll be a good dad regardless.
What do you know, two months later, I fell pregnant! She saw the baby in our future."
The marriage prediction - Megan, 41
"Visiting fortune tellers is kind of a hobby for most Indians. I went to one years ago, and it was so interesting.
In the part of India where I'm from, women wear a specific type of necklace (called mangalsutra) which indicates that they are married. Generally it's very easy to tell whether they are married or single because of their jewellery.
I, however, was rather unique and never wore any of the things married women do in that region. Because I also went to the reading with my sister, I'm guessing the fortune teller looked at me and assumed that I was unmarried.
When I told him I was 32 (at the time), he also assumed I was desperately looking for a husband, so all his predictions were around how many hardships I will face in finding a suitable guy that year, and how his 'special rings' could help me find one quickly.
When my husband came to pick us up, this fortune teller's face was livid with the realisation that he was being taken for a ride instead of us!"
'The one' prediction - Kelly, 28
"I went to see a clairvoyant about two years ago. She predicted that I would soon meet a guy who would become my husband, and described him as having an accent, broad shoulders, twinkly eyes, a love of sport, and added that we would meet on the beach and go on to have a really fun but turbulent relationship. She told me I would initially struggle with some of his lifestyle choices, but eventually he would mellow and we would get married and have two kids.
Within months I met a surfer who fit her exact description. He was everything to a tee and, yes, what grew was the most testing relationship I've ever had. I saw a future with him, and threw everything at the relationship to try make it work.
But we were fighting a lot - too much - and decided to go on a break about six months in.
The night before we went on a break, I was lying in his bed with an overwhelming sense that someone else was there with me, I didn’t feel scared or anything, just kind of protected. It lasted quite a long time and after about 20 minutes of lying there, I thought to myself, 'Give me a sign if there is something in this relationship'. That's when the tap in the kitchen came on for about five seconds.
Days later, while he was still on holiday, I was in a bad place and on the way to dinner with a friend, and popped into a male clairvoyant for answers.
He told me that he couldn’t see love in the relationship I was in, and that while we adored each other, it wasn’t enough. He said I should end things immediately, because there was no future.
We broke up two weeks ago."