Madame Stella D'Oro

   A name like the one in the title should be a dead giveaway that you may not be dealing with a scrupulous clairvoyant. Think so?
   I think so. Approach with Caution is the message conveyed here. It's a good idea though, to approach anyone who deals in the supernatural - or says they do - with extreme caution. And I would not exclude organized religion from this group. I lived in fear for years thinking my non-Catholic mom was going to hell because she refused to convert - according to my Catholic church. If I believed in Hell (which I do, but not the red-hot-burning-fires of demons and pitchforks that they parade around Sunday schools) I would also believe that people who tell little children these things to frighten them, are all going to be wiggling on the ends pitchforks in some firey place one day.
    God is love. According to Drew - it is a love so pure and real that we have no words for it on earth. And can you imagine this God firing up the furnaces and throwing his children onto a red-hot pit of coals? What nonsense!
   But I digress. Just be careful of people who set themselves up as authorities on the subject of all things spiritual and "psychic." Have all your antennae switched to "on".
   But they too are "Teachers." Some good, some bad, some memorable and some - not so much... Just like the ones we had at school.The thing is, although we all have these Extra-Sensory-Perception gifts to some degree or another, there are those who have honed them to a fine art and will do a lot of good with their abilities, but there are those who will not.
   As you can imagine, it's a very easy field to exploit and one of the saddest and most treacherous ways on earth to exploit people who consult them in good faith. But some will use this medium to do just that. 
   Their audiences are sitting ducks. Usually grieving people or people desperately looking for answers from somewhere outside of themselves - and their known universe. It's very easy to tell these people exactly what they want to hear. And you do that by being very good at reading people and all the signals we give off. And they make a lot of money doing it.
   The first psychic medium I ever consulted became a good friend over the years. She was highly intuitive, gentle and deadly accurate. She told me on my very first visit that my husband Walt was "making a soul decision about whether to stay or to leave."
   My initial reaction was "What Nonsense!" The first one of these bozos I consult is a whack job! I'm outta here! I wouldn't be surprised if some pissed-off angel is waiting to smite me when I step outside! I'm going to burn in hell for plain stupidity! 
   But I stayed and listened to this woman, in a tiny adobe house in the red rock canyons of Arizona - a Navajo woman with a degree in music displayed on an ancient piano pushed back against a bumpy wall.
   Walt died of a massive heart attack ten days later. Nobody saw it coming. He never knew about my visit to the psychic.
   And then there was Madame Stella D'Oro in NYC who I went to see on a whim while strolling the sidewalks of New York one day.Terrible idea. She started by giving me some dire warnings about my life and everyone else's (involving suicides and terrible illness and huge money losses and - floods and earthquakes - and ended the conversation (when she saw she was losing me) by saying she would tell me the rest of the story for another $350.  
   Yup. Proceed with caution.
   But don't write them all off. The discipline of intutive study is real, and in the right hands it can open many, many doors. It can comfort and cleanse and soothe.There are some very good people who practice this spiritual way of life, incorporating it into their everyday lives and sharing it with others. You will almost never find any of them trying to convert anyone else or trying to convince someone that there's is the "only way." They have no need to do that. They allow people to walk their own truths. They are some of the most genuine worthwhile people you will ever meet.