CNHI News Service

SALEM, Mass. -- I like to keep the future where it belongs. I always figured since I don't worry about the future, the future shouldn't worry about me.

But I was wrong. Salem is full of people who worry about the future, and for $30 they'll spend 15 minutes or so worrying about mine. Or yours.

Auntie Linda: Psychic Fair

I warned Auntie Linda (Linda Weinbaum) at the Psychic Fair in the Museum Place Mall that I just don't believe in this fortune-telling business. Then she hit a home run on the first pitch.

She "reads" through "crystal scrying" -- crystals tossed on the table. She told me to repeat my full name over and over again. I wasn't comfortable repeating my whole name over and over. Couldn't we settle on repeating it two or three times?

She looked amused. "The saying of your name is the source of the energy you emit," she said. The energy flows through the crystals and then to her. So I began mumbling my name, and she began soaking up my energy, such as it is.

"You're very interested in detail and mystery," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if you really enjoyed a mystery. Going home and writing a mystery. Or watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie."

Holy cow, I'm thinking. I have written a mystery. In fact, three. And under that same full name I've been mumbling, Alan Dennis Burke.

Some male figure had come in and then out of my life, she said. But I couldn't think of one. She moved on, suggesting that I had trouble with my throat; she touched her own.

"Acid reflux," I suggested.

"Watch what you eat," she cautioned. See a doctor.

Linda wondered if I like being on the water.

"No."

"You probably drowned in a past life. That explains that."

"I can swim."

"Good," she laughed, before asking my sign. Didn't know it. But I explained I was born in late November.

"You're half-water," she said.

"I thought everybody was half-water. More than half-water."

"That's your body," she explained. She was referring to my sign.

The Rev. Barbara: Angelica of the Angels

My literary career also came up with the Rev. Barbara Szafranski (Church of the Mediphysica) or just plain Reverend Barbara or Angelica of the Angels, who interprets visions on Central Street. "I've seen angels," she said. "That's why they call me the messenger."

First off, she gently chided me for not allowing my potential to flower. "You get in the way of you."

"I do?"

"Why aren't you a writer?"

"Well," I raised my notebook, "I am a writer."

"Why aren't you writing a book?"

"I did write a book."

"You're going to write two more," she declared, adding that this was going to make me both rich and famous.

"I don't want to be famous," I argued.

"You will be," she shrugged, indicating that I have no choice in the matter.

Later, she seemed to have contact with my mother and father, sending messages from the beyond.

Your mother, she said, ran her home in a very organized fashion.

"My mother? My mother?" I warned her that my mother raised 11 kids. It hadn't seemed all that organized.

Eleven kids, the Rev. Barbara nodded. Mom and Dad were satisfied with the effort, she said. "Every single one of them turned out good."

"You could get an argument on that," I said.

"Your mother says you are very opinionated."



Sylvia Martinez: Goddess Treasure Chest

Sylvia Martinez of the "Goddess Treasure Chest" on Essex Street did my reading with tarot cards. Born in Costa Rica, Sylvia is a Boston University-trained therapist who theoretically can predict a person's future and then -- wearing her other hat -- counsel you on how to cope with it.

With me, trouble started the moment after she explained that she never told people when she saw death in the cards -- because what can they do about it? Then, she slapped down the first card and went pale.

"This is not the happiest card in the deck," she said.

Urgently, Sylvia took my hand and turned it over to see my palm. "I just checked. You do have a long lifeline."

My skepticism notwithstanding, I was relieved to hear it.

Card by card, she investigated every phase of my life.

"Social life. Quiet."

Couldn't argue.

Work -- I'm coming into money. (This sounds like a trend.)

Health -- OK. "You're not going to die this year."

The cards allow more specificity, she added. "Which body part do you want me to do?"

I didn't know what to say.

Love life -- she urged me to be "looser." Then, she looked up, asking what I needed to know about affairs of the heart.

"I've always had a weakness for bad girls," I confessed.

"Oh." Sylvia paused. "You're one of those." She shrugged. "See me in my other capacity."

All in all, I came away impressed with the good intentions and gentle approach of Salem's foresight community. And there was an uncomfortable moment with Auntie Linda -- when she said I was the type to write mysteries -- when I began to wonder if I should adjust my whole world view and embrace the notion of psychic phenomena.

What's more, I never told them that I intend shortly to become fabulously wealthy and work at The Salem News only as a hobby. But they figured it out. They saw right through me.

Alan Burke writes for The Salem (Mass.) News.