A Factchecker Goes to Psychic School: Can You Predict What Happens Next?
For six months I attempted to temper my skepticism and tap into my ‘goddess roots’, where fantasy and reality are interchangeable
By Carey Dunne
Montclair Psychic School sits above a florist’s shop in the town of Rutherford, New Jersey. On a Sunday in June, eight students sit in a yellow painted classroom, watching a mastiff named Axel sniff a bust of the Buddha.
“C’mere, Axel,” says a woman whose T-shirt reads: “Medicine heals the body. DOGS heal the soul.” She offers him a treat. “Good boy.”
Axel slobbers on her lap, then lopes around the room, sniffing amethyst crystals, a conga drum and a gold Tibetan singing bowl.
“Send your heartstrings out,” says Natalie Anderson, a special education teacher who moonlights as an animal communicator. “Connect. Ask Axel: what’s in his world? What does he know? What does he want? Don’t be shy.”
Axel drools on the rug as the students try to read his mind.
“He’s saying ‘hikes’,” says one woman. “He wants a job, so he feels like he has a purpose. Maybe he can get a backpack, so his job can be carrying water on hikes?”
