Profile of a psychic

She studied psychology and parapsychology after giving a disastrous consultation at the age of 15. “I made the mistake of telling a woman when her son was going to die,” she discloses. “She was crying on the floor. My mother wanted to kill me. I decided I needed to learn more so I could do it right.”

She has studied the problems of schizophrenia and manic depression. But she identifies “the insecurity that we all have” as the basic cause of most problems.

Sometimes the issue is karmic. “I do karmic and aura cleansing, but not everyone can be cleansed.”

Violating basic laws of human decency causes deep problems, she avers. Her background mixes Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox influences. “In almost five decades of my life, I know the only thing that matters is these four commandments: Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt honor thy parents, love thy neighbor, and thou shalt not commit adultery. Angelina Jolie never should have taken Brad Pitt from his wife.”

We go on to the tarot cards. “This deck is based on one that was made for Queen Elizabeth I. The colors were made from emeralds, rubies, sapphires.” She spreads the cards, maintaining a running commentary on my life. I ask about a relative who’s in trouble.

“He’s a good person,” she replies. “He’s working things out, and he’ll be okay. Communications between you aren’t what they should be.” Well, I have to agree with that.

Personal issues are not Rose’s only topic. She says she works for three Wall Street banks as a financial consultant and advisor, answering questions about investments and management decisions. “Hitler had a psychic,” she points out. “So did Queen Victoria, the Reagans, the Clintons. I’ve read Yoko Ono, Elizabeth Taylor and some big rabbis.”

Rose moved from Manhattan to Woodstock after 9/11, when her COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) made it hard for her to breathe. Business here has been good. “Mostly I get people by word of mouth,” she says, “but I do get a lot of walk-ins. Usually psychics with neon signs are gypsies, but when I didn’t have the neon no one knew I was here.”

She regrets the shysters that give the profession a bad name. Despite all the flack that mediums get, she says, “People need to know what’s coming. They want to know, ‘Why did he leave me? Why did she leave me?’ They want to understand what went wrong.”

See her website at www.psychicreadingsinwoodstockny.com.