Material Girl, Mystical World: The Now-Age Guide for Chic Seekers and Modern Mystics. Ruby Warrington

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       “YOU KNOW YOU’RE PSYCHIC IF YOU HAVE A BODY”

      When I first met Betsy LeFae, I knew she was my kind of medium. And if she’s taught me anything, it’s that first impressions, gut feelings and hunches—about a person, or a job, or a potentially soul-destroying relationship for that matter—are really worth going with. Even if going with them means walking away from a killer “on paper” opportunity, pissing a bunch of people off, or making yourself look like a total idiot.

      Betsy and I were introduced by my friend Jules, a downtown New York jewelry designer who makes pieces for Rihanna and Beyoncé and who has a healthy appreciation for the mystical herself. (She’s the kind of girl who goes to Iceland on vacation and winds up naked in a sweat lodge.) Anyhow, Jules had hired Betsy to do palm readings at the launch of a new collection, and when I told Jules all about my plans for The Numinous, she insisted we had to meet.

      I’d had limited success with psychics in the past, having mainly been exposed to them as a journalist at product launches (like Jules’s event, I guess), where you get a ten-minute reading after some publicist has plied you with wine and your brain’s all soggy anyway. When I went for a proper session with the psychic all the fashion people in London go to, her “predictions” were so ridiculous (“a former airline pilot named Pete will have the key to your new apartment …”) it felt like I’d been punked.

      My one good experience was with a woman called Katie Winterbourne, when I was about twenty-five and having a hard time trusting my decision-making processes. It actually felt more like a therapy session. She used a tarot deck to divine the root of the issues I’d been facing, and I just remember crying buckets and walking out feeling like I had all the answers I’d been looking for. What she’d essentially done, and what I’ve come to realize is the job of any psychic worth their crystal ball, is tap me into my own intuition.

      Which brings me back to my first meeting with Betsy, who had invited me for an almond chai latte at a café near her apartment in East Williamsburg. We’d been chatting about ways she could contribute to The Numinous, and so far the cute-as-a-button, tattooed woman in front of me was about as far removed from the clichéd image of a psychic as you can get. There was no bejeweled turban, and no “mysterious” glint in her eye. She’d also been telling me about the time she read for Andrew W.K. and channeled the spirit of Steve Jobs for Vice TV. If my mission with The Numinous was to create a mainstream conversation about the Now Age, she was beyond perfect. Thank you, Universe. And Jules.

      Betsy had also been hosting something called the Weekly Williamsburg Spirit Séance at her home for the past two years. Every Thursday, Betsy and her boyfriend, Bryan (they met on Okaycupid.com and bonded right away over spirituality, sacred geometry, and music for plants, of course), had invited eleven total strangers, along with their deceased ancestors, into their space. And all for a $10 donation. Are you insane?! was my first reaction. Since we’d just met, I didn’t say this out loud. But seriously, there were some bona fide weirdos out there and this was New York freaking City (a.k.a. weirdo central).

      The image that immediately flashed in my mind’s eye when Betsy told me about her séances was of a group of, I dunno, voodoo-wielding screwballs?, descending weekly on her one-bedroom walk-up—an example of the prejudice I believe so many people have about all things Now Age. And having embraced this mystical path myself, and crossed over to the “other side,” I’ve also found myself on the receiving end. I can see it in people’s eyes sometimes when I explain what I do (“oh you’re one of those”) and hear it in an editor’s tone of voice when he or she politely declines a story on, say, high-vibrational furniture made with crystals, designed to shift negative energy. On these occasions, I consciously choose to not try to “convert” the naysayers. If the New Age was about rebelling against the status quo, the Now Age way is simply to lead by the example of your fabulously mystical life.

      But back to the notion of hosting a weekly séance in your home, wasn’t it a little, СКАЧАТЬ