A Personal Journey After Hurricane Sandy 2012

Everyone talks about the damage to the coastal areas of New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island, from Hurricane Sandy.  Clearly, those areas bore the brunt of the storm.  Northwestern New Jersey didn't register as even a tiny blip of concern among lawmakers and media.  But this was my story from New Jersey.  Every single road in my town had a tree that fell across it.  It was impossible to get in or to get out.  Sidewalks were largely impassable due to the debris of fallen trees.

Everywhere you went in Morris County, NJ, which lies 20 miles west of New York City, you saw giant oaks, pine trees, and other ancient trees yanked up at the roots lying next to or crushing equally old homes.

Telephone poles crumpled up like tinker toys.  We had no power, electric, internet, television or phones for two weeks.  We were among the last to get power back in New Jersey.

Some homes got "lucky" like this one and the tree missed the house.

The root structures of these massive old trees made you realize, with sadness, the hugeness of the loss.  While we were very lucky that no trees hit our own house, we were homeless for two weeks.  We stayed with various friends who either had some power or a generator.  Our house was 35 degrees inside - especially the week of the Nor'easter Storm when we also got 3 inches of snow on the ground!

This is me standing in front of a tree that fell on power lines.  The tree had literally been on fire for over a week before the utilities company got around to fixing it.

This photo gives you a good idea of the size of the roots of these trees...

These residents got lucky and were able to contact a tree company before the big rush.  Getting debris removed was another whole issue in itself.

Another sidewalk view.



 

Inside this supermarket, essential supplies like milk are clearly running very, very low a week after the storm.  I was able to hitch a ride to a supermarket with a friend, since I had no gas in my car to get there myself.




Nearly two weeks after the Hurricane hit, some towns in our County began to see power and tree company workers for the very first time.  New Jersey had more than 2 million residents without power for a very long time.  With Of the 11,000 utility workers working in New Jersey, 9,000 were from out of state.  Montclair, for instance, had workers from Tennesee, Florida and Kentucky.  My town only had workers from Ohio.  Northern New Jersey was basically ignored for the first two weeks while workers focused exclusively on Southern and Coastal New Jersey areas.  Thank God for the kindness of others!

I had to cast my presidential ballot in another County since I couldn't live in my house.  Here I am casting a "Provisional Ballot," granted to hurricane victims displaced by the storm, in a cardboard "booth" where I was given a pencil (with no eraser) to fill in all of my personal information which remained on the outside of the envelope into which I inserted my penciled-in ballot for United States president, vice president and a bunch of politicians I had never heard of from this district.  Theoretically, anyone could disqualify my vote simply by erasing my penciled data on the outside of my ballot!  I would say it is definitely time to start thinking about updating our voting techniques.  This doesn't even rate methods used in corrupt Third World nations... Pathetic!



New Jersey began gasoline rationing and odd-even days when you were allowed to buy gas.  We waited in gas lines 5 hours long only to arrive and have the station run out of gas!  After 9 days of not being able to get gas for the car, my son jumps on a gas line for hand-held gas cartons and pulls of a miracle!  Finally we have enough gas to get home again!



 

Is Fibromayalgia A Disease of Psychic Mediums?

A couple of weeks ago I was having dinner with two friends of mine.  David Rountree is an audio engineer, who previously worked on military accoustic research, and now is in charge of the public PA systems in various transportation stations in the NYC area.  He has also developed a following in the paranormal world doing experimentation on behalf of the Scientific Paranormal Investigative Research Information and Technology ("SPIRIT") Lab.  His lovely Texan fiancee, Tracy Ray, is a medium who has only recently come "out of the closet" with her abilities and has begun working with David on his paranormal tours around the country.

During the course of our dinner, Tracy talked a bit about her painful fibromyalgia, which often makes it difficult for her to even touch or hug other people.  David said he was convinced that fibromyalgia is a common complaint among psychic mediums and suggested that there must be some kind of link between the kind of highly energic work performed by a medium and its negative effect on the body resulting in nerve pain from fybromyalgia.  Of course, I was aware that many of my medium friends have trouble touching people physically and suffer from a variety of debilitating conditions including fibromyalgia.  It was an interesting correlation, I thought.

Two days later, I decided to get a massage from my local spa.  My masseuse had only worked on me once before.  I didn't know anything about her background and all she knew about me was that I was a psychic with a radio show.  About half way through working on me, she asked me if I had fibromyalgia.  I was shocked and said no.  In fact, no one has ever suggested such a thing to me before and I don't suffer from nerve pain.  I tend to be as healthy as a horse.  I asked her why.

To my great surprise, she said, " I'm a medium. I used to have fibromyalgia.  I am very familiar with all the medical trigger points related to fibromyalgia."  She explained that people with fibromyalgia tend to experience pain when certain points of the body are pressed.  She told me I seemed to have pain on all of those points.

Well, I had no idea she was a medium and she had no idea I was a medium!  To hear her talk about fibromyalgia fast on the heels of my discussion with David and Tracy seemed way too bizarre - not to mention the suggestion that I might have it myself without knowing it!

In fact, it was one of the strangest massages I have ever had.  I knew I had been through a couple of rough weeks with all my spiritual mediumship work and needed some deep relaxation.  I am used to the sensation of releasing strong emotions when particular muscles are massaged.  This time, however, I seemed to be released very, very specific spirit entities - people and even animals!  It was bizarre.  For instance, when she worked on my left leg, I experienced the release of a male auto mechanic!  Why?  I had no idea.  I had not done any spiritual work involving any auto mechanics.  That night, I randomly turned on a television show, Dateline Mysteries, and it was all about the suspicious disappearance and likely homicide of an auto mechanic by his wife who was also a manager of an auto mechanic business.  I have never watched, read or discussed a case about a homicide of an auto mechanic before.  Don't know if there is a relationship, but in this line of work, you must always keep your mind open. 

My masseuse told me after she worked on me that at a certain point, she felt so much energy releasing from my body that the entire massage room had actually heated up and became uncomfortably hot!

I have shared this story with a group of online mediums and the reaction was quite amazing.  Many of them are indeed suffering from similar fibromyalgia symptons.  David says he believes my masseuse was right on the money - that nerve pain develops from a kind of circuit overload of excess energy (spiritual) that cannot be easily discharged by the medium.

According to WebMD, fibromyalgia is diagnosed based on whether the patient reacts with pain when  18 known trigger points on the body are pressed (see diagram above).  If the patient reacts to 11 out of the 18, then they will be diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  It seems my masseuse's information about the trigger points and release of excess energy were the bits of information that David needed in order to pursue his theory.  He is now working on an experiment to apply EMF stimulation to those trigger points to see if there is a way to reduce the pain of fibromyalgia. 

UPDATE:  An interesting current science article has appeared showing that people who suffer from fibromayalgia seem to improve when treated with oxygen inside hyperbaric chambers normally reserved for scuba divers to avoid the bends!!  Take a look at this interesting article:  http://thespiritscience.net/2015/11/30/fibromyalgia/

Some Coincidences as "Psychic Intuition" Hits Bookstores

Have you ever had that rather common but astounding experience of knowing that someone, out of the blue, was about to call you on the telephone or send you an email?

This past Wednesday, August 29, 2012, I was invited to give a presentation and book signing of my new book, "Psychic Intuition: Everything You Ever Wanted to Ask But Were Afraid to Know," at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Staten Island, NY.  I was told that I should speak for 15 minutes and then do Q & A for another 15 minutes.  Just to be sure I didn't go over my allotted time limit, I figured I should wear a watch.  I don't normally wear wrist watches any more.  Like most people, I flip on my trusty i-phone.  But I thought it would be more discreet if I wore I watch.  I picked through my jewelry box and pulled out all my wrist watches.  None of them worked - except one that was given to me by a friend about 10 years ago.  He had an obsession with time pieces, traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to start up a wrist watch business, and given them as gifts to his friends.  The last time I saw him was many years ago. I had never worn the wrist watch because I frankly I wasn't crazy about the design. But I wore it - for the first time - to my book signing on Wednesday. That night, when I got home and read through my emails, I learned he had died that morning.  He was 91 years old.

Life is incredibly short and we should take advantage of learning about all of our amazing skills and gifts as human beings in the time we have.  This story illustrates what I talk about in my new book.  "Psychic Intuition" was published last week and is now in Barnes & Noble and other book stores around the country, and available on Amazon.  For those of you who prefer electronic books, it is also available on Kindle and Nook.

The story about my friend's watch shows how intuition operates in subtle and curiously synchronistic ways.  Never underestimate your capacity to "tune in" to the vast ocean of vibratory information that surrounds us every second of every day.  It may not seem rational or based on any facts at all - and still you can "know" things without knowing why.  Could you call this a "coincidence"?  Sure!  You can call virtually every event a coincidence.  But a synchronicity is a "meaningful coincidence."   If the intersection of two seemingly unrelated events is strangely meaningful to the person experiencing them, it begins to feel as if there may be an invisible cause-and-effect rather than simply a random coincidence.  It is our responsibility to not merely dismiss events like this, but to examine them for possible causes.  After all, the concept of "cause-and-effect" is not an alien idea to our scientists!

Anyway, I invite you all to take a look at my book.  I wrote it for skeptics and believers.  I wanted to explain the origins of psychic ability to everyone and in terms that everyone can accept and understand.  Psychic ability is not magic.  It is a natural, normal, human physiological function.  Most of us lose this ability as we grow up because our brains become programmed to think in words and logic - both of which kill this style of "thinking" - or, more accurately, "sensing."  We forget how to sense our world.  But this can be retrained.

"Psychic Intuition" is not a book about how to become psychic in 12 easy steps, nor is it a book about what an amazing and extraordinary life I have as a psychic medium.  However, I set forth simple exercises to help you "relearn" your innate psychic ability.  I explain what it feels like from the inside to have psychic impressions.  After all, I am a trained psychic.  I became a psychic detective and spiritual medium rather late in life.  The book has been called "ground breaking" by almost everyone who has read it - from skeptics to psychics.  I don't think it is like any other book I have read before.  I invite you to take a look at it and let me know what you think about it.

Another strange "coincidence".  Last night - for the first time - I randomly decided to check on Amazon to see if they had removed my previous (much longer) book called "Psychic Intuition."  I was shocked to see there was just one copy available and it had a list price of a whopping and unbelievable $1,561.57!  This morning, I opened up my email and found a note from someone who had also just checked the price of my old book online and commented, "I still don’t understand why the 2010 ed of your Intuition book has shot up so high!"  It was news to me! 

Coincidence is only a matter of the appearance of events in a seemingly orderly sequence based on our (mis)perception of how time flows.

Long Island Medium "Sees" The Money Ghost

I always liked Theresa Caputo, star of TLC's hit television series "The Long Island Medium" now about to enter its third season.  She was seemingly natural, funny, loud-mouthed, and amazingly talented in her ability to speak to the dead with apparent accuracy.  I especially enjoyed her very typically Italian Long Island obsession with her hair-do - an odd platinum, hair-sprayed helmet hair (rivaled only by Newt Gingrich's wife Callista's undented blonde head piece).  Her obsession made her vulnerable and thus believable. 

That is why I was so shocked and then disappointed to see her appear in a Priceline.com commercial which has aired repeated on television since June.  The basic theme of the ad is that Theresa is sitting at a dining room table giving a psychic reading to a young couple who are trying to connect with the spirit of the Priceline Negotiator, an advertising character long played by actor William Shatner, until the character was "killed off" by the advertising agency in a bus accident.  Theresa appears confusingly like herself in her hit reality show where she gives readings to clients seated across from them at a small table.  She appears to be "linking" with the spirit of the deceased person the couple wishes to contact.  Then, while gently waving incense with her shaman's eagle feather, she seems confused.  She tells them she is hearing the spirit say something bizarre and she starts singing the advertising jingle for the Priceline Negotiator.

What!!!  I couldn't believe my ears.  She just sold her soul for cash!! 

Her sell-out to the commercial world was stunning for many reasons.  First, and most importantly, Theresa decided to opt for cash over morality.  She clearly didn't care that she was using her status as a well-respected spiritual medium in order to grab some quick and easy cash.  Second, she betrayed those who have believed in her abilities as being "true."  By agreeing to be in a hokey, staged commercial basically mocking spiritual mediums, she betrayed those who trusted her.  Don't forget.  Her clients are people who are sad and grieving for loved ones who have died!  Third, by making fun of the information that comes through from dead spirits to mediums (by suggesting that mediums fake their information for commercial gain), she unfortunately has made all mediums look bad.  If she thought this was "funny" or "cute" - she was terribly wrong.  It wasn't.  It made her look like a total fraud - in real life, in reality television, and in advertising.

According to a Reuter's article quoting the Priceline.com press release, Caputo was quoted as saying, "It was a blast doing this spot. The hardest thing about comedy is delivering those lines with a straight face.  But it is the Negotiator, after all, and his sole concern, wherever he is, is saving people money on their priceline.com hotel rooms."  Really?

Priceline's Chief Marking Officer Brett Keller was clearly pleased by the ad.  He said: "Given the 'status' of the Negotiator, Theresa Caputo was a natural choice to help us continue the narrative of this campaign. It was a pleasure working with Theresa and we hope her fans enjoy seeing this side of her."

No, sorry, I don't think this ad will make Theresa's fans love her.  In fact, this ad has backfired in Theresa's face!  By contrast, it was a brilliant move by Priceline.com. The company stands to gain from all the publicity and controversy from having used Theresa's reputation for its own benefit.

Spiritual mediums, like myself, already walk enough of a tightrope trying to make people understand the reality of the spirit world without having someone like Theresa Caputo muddy up the waters again just to make a quick buck.

Cat Ghosts

I have two black cats - Salem and Phoebe.  I realize as a psychic medium I qualify, for all intents and purposes as a "witch" under historical definitions.  So, having these two black cats - or "familiars" as the superstitious folks in the Middle Ages referred to them - is sort of appropriate.  Familiars were considered witches' helpers in concocting their magic or reborn witches.   Historically, black cats have been deemed to have special powers, and to be either good luck (in Asia and England) or bad luck (United States and Italy).  However, I have basically inherited them from my kids.

We went to see a lady in the neighboring rural town who had over 100 wild cats living in the stables with her 6 horses.  My kids each picked out one cat.  My daughter picked out Salem, an exceptionally friendly male cat who greeted her in the barn.  Salem snores and is often unaware that his tongue is hanging out of his mouth.  My son picked out a very sweet, delicate and handicapped female cat who had been rescued from the top of an oak tree when she and her litter mates were abandonned by their mother.  Phoebe is the only cat I know who actually talks in a very sweet girl-voice and says with perfect diction "Me-ow!"  Despite her sweetness, she is highly vindictive.  She pees on things to express her displeasure - including on us!  She has one bad eye and one ear that was chopped by a veterinarian for ferile cats to show they were spayed. 

After months of trying to coax them out of tool chests, from under the car, from behind the furniture, and even from underneath the indoor foundation of the house, they finally began to acclimate to us and our house.  We decided to keep Salem in my daughter's bedroom and Phoebe in my son's bedroom.  Just so they would have a safe place to go.  That seemed to work out fine, except that it soon became clear the two cats couldn't stand each other.  At first, Phoebe terrorized Salem. She chased him all over the house when Salem was afraid of his own shadow.  But as the months rolled by, the roles reversed.  Salem gained self-confidence.  He began to attack Phoebe until she retreated into the only safe place in the house - a small space behind my son's bed.  Usually at 4:00 AM in the morning, there would be horrific cat wars - hissing, thumping, running, fur flying, hideous meowing and yowling.  They still don't like each other much.  There is now a kind of uneasy truce.  My daughter went off to college and I inherited Salem.  He now sleeps on my bed.  Phoebe sleeps on my son's bed.

One night about two months ago, I was sleeping when I was gently awoken by what I believed was Salem who jumped up on the foot of my bed and walked around my feet.  I could feel the indentation of the small cat feet in the mattress as he carefully avoided my feet.  I moved my legs and  - to my great shock - suddenly bumped into the "real" Salem.  He was sound asleep, curled up in a ball, in the crook of my knees.  When I looked down by my feet, there was no cat!

"Well then," I thought suddenly wide awake, "Who the heck was the cat walking around my feet?"

It was not Phoebe.  She refuses to enter my room because she recognizes it as Salem's territory.  Moreover, there simply wasn't any cat by my feet!   I considered the implausible idea that it might have been the ghost of a cat!  As a psychic medium, I decided early on to law down the law, and I banned all spirits from entering my bedroom.  I don't mind if they go elsewhere.  But it never occurred to me to include the spirits of animals. 

I told one friend about this unusual experience, but didn't mention it anyone else.

Three days ago, my son, who is 13 years old, casually mentioned that he has recently had the experience of what he called a "ghost cat" in his bed.  He said that while he was sleeping, he felt the footsteps of a cat walking on his pillow behind his head.  He thought it was Phoebe until he realized she was sleeping near his stomach.  If it had been Salem, Phoebe would have immediately run behind the bed.  But more importantly, there was no cat on my son's pillow.  I had never spoken to him about cat ghosts or the spirits of animals.

Apparently, we have attracted a ghost cat in our house.  It likes walking around while the other cats are curled up and sleeping on the beds.  Maybe this is a cat from the barn who knew our two cats when they lived there, or perhaps it is one of the many cats I have had as pets over the years.  I just don't have enough information.  I would love to hear from anyone else who has experienced an animal spirit.

Is Invisibility Possible for Humans?

In the paranormal world, the impossible is often possible.  We just need explanations for the underlying mechanisms.  In college, I had a good friend who claimed that his mother snapped a photo of him when he was only about seven years old while kneeling on the sofa.  When the photo was developed, it revealed only two indents in the sofa pillow where his knees would have been.  He was entirely invisible!  I concluded there had to be something wrong with the story. However, years later, while exploring the world of psychics and the paranormal, I was privvy to a number of photographs of people - very often psychic mediums - which showed them in partial states of invisibility.  I recall a series of photos of a woman dancing with a man.  She was fully visible in the first photo but progressively the photos showed her arms simply becoming invisible!  Other photos showed people in various states of transparency or with limbs disappearing.  Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was not an isolated phenomenon.

What if we could really make ourselves invisible?  How would that work?

It never dawned on me that I too might have that capability - but I learned I too have shown up as partially invisible in photographs!  One such photo is posted on my website.  My head is partially transparent.  You can see the panes of the window behind me running through the area where my head ought to have been.  There is also - if you look carefully - the image of a woman's head and shoulders seemingly attached to the righthand base of my neck!  On that evening, I was operating in my capacity as a spiritual medium in a haunted location.  Is this result of the medium elevating their body's light vibration beyond the normal optical range?  Or is it the result of a certain shielding acquired by some strange condition in the environment?  I don't have the answer.

Shamans talk about shapeshifting.  This is really another way of saying that you can become invisible by altering the fundamental nature of your spirit.  John Perkins describes such events in his book "Shapeshifting" where he was unable to recognize one of his South American colleagues who literally disappeared when he camouflaged his naked body as a bush near a park bench.  The way Perkins describes it, the man was literally invisible.

Then it occurred to me. I had learned how to be invisible a long time ago while I was still an attorney practicing securities litigation in New York.  The law firm had only four attorneys - two senior partners, one of-counsel attorney, and one associate (me!).  It was a cold, highly intellectual environment.  My only real friend and confidante was the of-counsel attorney, Harold.  I generally felt very inadequate and unappreciated.  The attorneys generally kept their doors shut all day as they worked.  It was the firm's unwelcoming culture.  I would occasionally wander into Harold's office across the hall and we would discuss legal theories.  I didn't really talk to anyone else.  I worked at the firm every day for seven years.

About 15 years later, I needed to find an attorney for a friend.  I decided to reach out to my old friend Harold.  He was now a solo practitioner in New York since the old firm had dissolved.  I called him up and it was as if we had just spoken yesterday.  Same voice, same friendly banter - until Harold interrupted me and politely asked me who I was because he couldn't remember me at all!  I quickly explained I had worked there for seven years as an associate.  He remained confused.  Harold named every associate and intern who had ever worked there - both prior to my employment and afterward -but still couldn't remember ever meeting me!  I found this preposterous.  I identified dates, locations, cases, and even my physical description - I even emailed him a photo of me -  but he still couldn't recall who I was.  Apparently, I had been invisible at this law firm!  Invisible - literally!  What a concept!

Perhaps I shapeshifted unwittingly, like a chameleon, one of my first and only pets as a child.  Perhaps I altered my actual visual appearance because I did not truly want to be there.  In fact, it occurred to me afterwards, that ever since I was a child - for some unknown reason - it was not uncommon for my friends to not recognize me while passing me in the school hallway!  Indeed, once my own father once failed to recognize me when I was 26 years old.  I ran into him unexpectedly at a medical convention in New York.  I bounded up to him and greeted him warmly, to which he responded, "You will have to excuse me, Miss, but who are you?"  Neither my physical appearance nor my voice had changed since our last meeting.  I was faced with the strange task of advising him that I was his (only) daughter.   Another form of invisibility or shape shifting.

Today, scientists are just beginning to understand the technology of making objects invisible by bending the rays of light so they travel around the periphery of small objects instead of landing on the direct surface.  But I have witnessed, with my own eyes, a UFO the size of a football field that instantly became "invisible" in the sky (it did not fly away at a high speed - it simply disappeared in the blink of an eye!).  Clearly, someone has already mastered this technology and they are giving it practical applications.  It's time we put some more effort into understanding invisibility.  It's not magic...

Cherry Trees Are Like Fancy Pillows!

 

Now that it is springtime, most of us are enjoying the early flowering trees and bushes - in particular, the cherry and plum trees, dogwoods and magnolias, at least in the Northeast part of the U.S.  If I mention "cherry trees" most of you will smile sweetly with love.

I, the other hand, have grown to hate them!

The problem is that no one plants "real" shade trees anymore.  We plant these cute little ornamental flowering trees.  They are cheap, small and plentiful.  They look good and don't take up too much space in a property.  But they are really just glorified bushes.  They are not trees and our planet desparately needs to replace its trees which provide shade and oxygen in an increasingly warm and toxic planet.  The latest trend in industrial parks, parking lots, municipal streets, store properties and residential properties is to plant one or two ornamental trees.  This is, in my opinion, a huge mistake and, I predict, most urban and suburban areas will soon only have these tiny ornamental flowering trees and all the other larger trees will disappear.  Our urban and suburban areas will begin to bake in our growing planetary heat.  We will have less oxygen to breathe without our giant shade trees like the oak, beech, maple, elm, chestnut, and so on.  Ornamental trees are virtually the ONLY trees being planted these days.  They are the tree of choice for homeowners, shopping mall parking lots, industrial parks, gas stations, small shops, and tree-lined streets. Everywhere you look the large trees are being cut down and if they are replaced at all, they are replaced by these little flowering trees.  Why?  They are pretty for two weeks in the spring, and, unlike those other pesky big shade trees, ornamental fruit trees are small and don't block the view of the magnificent home or shopping mall store signs we wish to show off.  They do not block the view of the corporate building or stores.  Trees are annoying because they interfere with our ability to make more money!  That's the bottom line. 

Ornamental trees are like pretty, little pillows.  They look nice for interior decoration, but they have little real value.  If you want to sit down some place, you need a real sofa, not a tiny pillow!  Shade trees are like a sofa.  You can plant little ornamental trees all around the big shade tree and it will make for very pretty decoration, but don't replace the shade trees with ornamental trees.  We need our shade and oxygen in the world of global warming!