Psychics Telling You That He Will Come Back and Other Say He Wont
There are no crystal balls in sight when I meet Cardiff psychic medium Leigh-Catherine.
Neither are they any silk scarves or incense sticks burning in the corner, or tea leaves simmering away in a china teapot.
Instead, our meeting place is a David Lloyd Club which my psychic visits twice a day to workout between readings.
"I don't know what people expect, I just don't", Leigh-Catherine laughs, sipping a coconut water in the cafeteria of the Cardiff club.
"I feel like people expect somebody dressed in long flowing velvet robes, wearing crystals, smelling of patchouli with a wart on their nose."
As the first medium I've met, Leigh-Catherine is straight-talking and happy to answer my questions about a profession, which if I'm honest, has always filled me with a degree of suspicion.
Although she jokes she won't tell me exactly how long she's being doing it, to avoid giving away her age, she tells me she was first made aware of her intuition after being told during a psychic reading she had attended with her cousin.
In fact, it was something she said she was told by a number of mediums over the years, as well as by family friends with "psychic intuition".
But it was something she had pushed to the back of her mind until a visit to Australia changed everything.
"Things happened that people might say opened me up," Leigh-Catherine said.
"I had a dream something had gone really badly wrong for someone I used to date. I opened my mother's email and she told me... the steelworks on the wharf went under.
"My ex had worked for them and had worked for them from school.
"At the time I was working on a ranch with horses. Two days later, I woke up and I had a dream and said Smartie, one of the horses, was ill.
"A friend looked at me and [said] because it was the second [intuition] in a week we need to go check on Smartie. He was lying down kicking his guts, he had colic. The ranch owner said we had saved his life because we had got to him on time."
In her own words, Leigh-Catherine's intuition works in three ways - clairvoyantly, which deals with images, clairaudiently, which focuses on hearings, and clairsentiently, which centres around feelings.
Luckily, it's something she is able to control going about her day-to-day life - as she puts it "the best thing to compare it to is if you're not eating, you're not tasting."
Now, growing her client base bit by bit over the years, the trained beautician can now treat her mediumship as her full time profession, while dipping back into some makeup work when she wants.
As well as doing face-to-face readings, she will also take shifts doing phone readings, or manage requests for readings on her social media page.
Leigh-Catherine said: "Things like names, initials, months I hear. When people have passed away with heart or lung problems I might feel something in my chest, or feel breathy, or when people come in with anxiety, I can pretty much feel it in my chest.
"The difference between [intuition] and thoughts is that intuition comes and goes super fast. It comes, it's there and it's gone, but thoughts can linger. But I think everyone can get that gut feeling."
Although I'm determined to keep an open mind, one thing in particular bothers me more than anything else about the profession.
How does a psychic feel about their role delivering negative, or even ominous predictions, to those who may be more vulnerable than others?
And how does Leigh-Catherine deal with the responsibility of claiming to communicate with those who have passed on?
It turns out it is something she is keen to talk about too, and deals with using skills picked up from a childhood brought up around politicians.
She said: "I know how to speak to people so I can be incredibly diplomatic. I'm not going to not tell them but I have to be aware of how I deliver things.
"When people have had a loss, mediumship is proof of survival after physically passing away. It's messages from the afterlife based on evidence.
"I have got to give evidence. Things that there's no way I would know unless they were telling me - how they passed away, quirks, how they looked, months, birthdays, passings, wedding anniversarys.
"I've had some harrowing tales but the people who have been bereaved leave with a comfort and a reassurance that their loves ones are still living on and that they will see them again.
"Whatever their circumstances are in life, as long as they leave feeling better, comforted or reassured as far as I'm concerned I've done my job."
Before our reading, I have one final question.
While Leigh-Catherine has made it clear she has developed a thick skin to endure the trolls her profession attracts, what is her response to those who just don't believe in what she does, or else accuses mediums of mind games or being out to make a quick penny?
"There are absolutely entitled to their beliefs and I can understand where they are coming from because sadly there are an awful lot of charlatans professing they are a psychic medium, and sadly there are a lot of people who think they are psychic mediums and are are deluded," she said.
"But there are fraudsters in a lot of other professions - in finance, in building, so I think we do become an easy target.
"At the end of the day we live in a material world and everything needs to come down to common sense, reason and logic.
"There are people who prey on the vulnerable but there are people who don't pretend to be psychic mediums who prey on the vulnerable. If you're a bad person, you're a bad person whatever you profess to be."
She added: "At the end of the day, this is a faith I've got and spiritualism in the UK is a nationally recognised religion. If the rest of the world just realised we have need to accept others of different beliefs and faiths we would have world peace. "
What happened when I had a reading
With that it's time to move into the conference room where our photographer is setting up ready for my very first reading.
Before our meeting Leigh-Catherine has explained we will do a shorter version of one of her predictive readings, to give me a taste of how things work.
To do so, I'm encouraged to ask a question or chose a subject her cards will help answer. Keen for some career advice, I opt for a reading around my work - which it seems Leigh-Catherine is expecting.
But not before a quick flash of intuition.
"Do you suffer with a bad back? Who has a bad back?" Leigh-Catherine asks.
While it's not me, I notice our photographer Richard's reaction in the corner. While it might not be a massive surprise to hear a man who lugs around heavy equipment all day has back pain, it transpires he has previously suffered from whiplash.
To start the reading, Leigh-Catherine asks me to tap her worn pack of cards three times to get my energy into the pack before giving them a shuffle. Bright and colourful, her cards are less ominous than the more macabre Tarot cards I had been expecting.
As someone who has open Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, Leigh-Catherine has reassured me she hasn't looked at any of them - and will usually do a reading knowing only someone's first name so she has a name to put in her diary.
Even when people contact her on Facebook she won't look at their page - for one thing, she said she doesn't have the time to.
At first I'm told my cards are good. However, Leigh-Catherine gets an intuition about something she suspected during our earlier conversation - there's a chance I could move house, maybe in January or February next year.
To be ready I'm advised to be assertive and prepared for any potential arguments it could cause, as it's something my friends might advise against while playing Devil's advocate.
Next, I'm asked if I have a Scorpio close to me. After a moment's thought, I realise that applies to my mum - again something Leigh-Catherine suspected.
I'm told my mum is someone people remember, has a fabulous energy and is a real "mother hen" - "everything you could want".
Now we move onto my career. Next month I learn I have a breaking story coming up which is going to shake me, or cause some reflection. I'm told it will be difficult, and to prepare myself.
Leigh-Catherine said that generally speaking things are good, and I work in an office full of laughter and a warm feeling. For now, I'm told I've found my journalistic home, which is a relief.
But there is one thing I need to do - manage my stress levels. I'm told I have a busy mind, and need to learn to switch off at the end of my working day.
Leigh-Catherine breaks off and tells me I need to do yoga, which is good since it fits in with my Sunday schedule.
And I also need to hydrate, to help me quieten my mind.
As the reading continues, I'm told long-term I could move away from breaking news onto features and magazine work. At that point we break off again as I'm asked if I've covered a traumatic event centring around trains.
While I frantically think back, we again turn back to photographer Richard, who smiles but gives nothing away.
And lastly some good news - I can expect an engagement within my friendship circle in December.
The verdict
As I walk away from my first my psychic reading, I had to say I was quietly impressed.
I can't deny my ability to leave my work at the office door needs to improve, and that yes, I probably do need to drink more water.
I've recently started yoga, and for a busy office, there is a lot of laughter.
And I'm obviously biased but my mum is every one of those things Leigh-Catherine described, which my friends can testify to.
But the more I think about it couldn't this also apply to a lot of people in my job? And a lot of millennials like me?
I'm less convinced about my plans to move - after all I was lucky enough to buy my first house in December. But I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
And there was a reference to some friends in Worcester, which I thought might have made sense at the time, but after inspecting a map and correcting my geography, I'm less sure about now.
When it comes to my big breaking story, and eventually my move to features and magazines, I guess only time will tell.
All in all, my reading was a pleasant experience. Leigh-Catherine was funny, open and warm, and her advice was certainly welcome, even if some of it my parents and friends have previously told me. Would I go back? I'm not so sure.
But if it can reassure others, and give some comfort to those in need of it, then great - and being open minded in today's world certainly can't hurt. But only if it's done in the right way.
Psychics Telling You That He Will Come Back and Other Say He Wont
Source: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/psychic-medium-cards-tarrot-cardiff-17117187
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