Total con job.
I'm…read morea beginning tarot reader myself. I've gone to other tarot readers, including Mrs. Nathalie, attended meetings of the D.C. Tarot Society, hang out at psychic stores and have done some research. Until now every psychic I've encountered - paid and unpaid - has believed in what they were doing and genuinely wanted to help and was waaaaay more kosher than this chick.
I like to get an occasional paid reading to see how other people interpret the cards, what it takes to go pro, etc,. and popped over on a whim.
I didn't find her rude. She was smoking, but she made a point of putting it out before I sat down and sprayed. She offered me water. I got the sense that maybe she lived here. There was a cat and a dog and family members walking around. I've never encountered that before.
Her tarot price was flat $20. $20 for a long, in-depth reading would be a steal. She asks what I want and I say a tarot reading. She tells me that for the same money I should do a psychic reading since that's her specialty and I'll get more out of it. I said, "OK, it's just that I'm a novice tarot reader myself and I like to see how other people work." She goes ahead with the psychic reading.
For $20, it was about 5 minutes of her telling me vague details. Mostly accurate, but so vague they had to be. She tells me to make a wish and to not make it about money. Well what are they alternatives? Love and health, right? And I'm young and female, so of course I chose love. So she knew I had wished for love and she went with it. She told me that someone has hurt me in my past and that it messed up my destiny, that I'm off my life track, that something happened in my childhood that also has put a damper on all of my later relationships. She said she saw NY, Chicago and San Francisco. Sure, accurate. I have ties to all 3. But what native-born American isn't going to be able to find some type of connection in their life to three of the largest cities in America? She also told me that I'm very psychic...after me telling her I read tarot cards.
She told me I have issues trusting people. That stuck out, since I've been concluding the same thing of late. She told me that in romantic situations I experience the same thing over and over, the same kind of disappointment. Also true. I would be willing to admit that she's highly intuitive with good deductive reasoning skills.
She then tells me that my chakras are out of alignment, my heart chakra is damaged, that my aura is missing a color, and that there's no way to fix the problem without outside intervention. She said that I've undergone a spiritual death, that it's like the spiritual equivalent of having stage 4 cancer. I need to take a crystal and hold it over my heart for 15 minutes a day for 3 days, and meanwhile she's going to meditate on it as well, and her results are guaranteed. Other people charge thousands of dollars, but she does it for $300, and for me she'll do it for the special price of $150 and include the reading for free.
Trying to avoid being awkward or to insult her - just in case she actually believes what she's saying - by indicating that I think crystal healing and chakra alignment are a bunch of crap, and that if I didn't I'd be seeing a true reiki master because I happen to know one, and that it certainly wouldn't take holding a crystal for 15 minutes for 3 days to fix a problem as huge as the one she claims I'm having, I state that I don't have that kind of money.
So she tries to haggle with me. So I say I don't have the money on me right now. She asks if I have a credit card, swearing she's not just trying to sell me anything. Funny. It was cash only when I wanted to pay for the reading and had to run to an ATM, but now she takes credit cards.
She was relentless. But wouldn't you hate to never meet your soul mate? He's in your life now but your negative energy is blocking him. Aren't you willing to spend this money on yourself? Finally she gives up, but tells me that she's worried for me, and that when I do get the money I should hurry back quick because I'm running out of time. I'm pretty sure she called me her "dear dead Emily." That's nice, having someone tell you to your face that you're dead.
She made me feel terrible, even though I knew she was full of it. But I don't know if I was more upset by what she said to me or by the fact that I paid her $20 to say it, and walked out without getting the tarot reading - or any kind of extensive reading - that I had come for. I didn't even get to ask questions, and I had some specific ones in mind that she didn't answer. Good tarot readings are geared at providing life solutions, guidance on how to resolve an issue, and they never say "Pay the psychic to fix it for you." In tarot we learn that we have to make our own choices and continue on our own journey, and that everyone is his/her own savior. This "psychic reading" crap was insulting.