No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  Alvarez: I agree with you. I love these dialogues because I don’t sit on the “spiritual” side. I absolutely love this conversation. I do believe that a lot of what I’m doing as a psychic is a natural, mental connection. Telepathic—I don’t think it has to mean more than what people try to put on it. I’m able to have conversations with people where I’m reading their mind. I’ve said statements that they said an hour before meeting me—and that’s been validated. But I don’t think it’s special—I think it’s a natural, human occurrence. I think anyone can do it. I think déjà vu, I think saying the same thing at the same time, it all comes from that same energy of connecting.

  McAfee: Do you think some so-called seers are faking it? What percentage of practicing psychics would you consider completely legitimate?

  Alvarez: Like in any profession, you have people that will take advantage. I use the automobile industry. When your car breaks down and you’re desperate, you’ll go to anyone and they can tell you anything—and you’ll pay what you need to pay to get it fixed. The same thing happens with psychics. I myself, personally, don’t feel the need to mislead anyone. I feel people are coming for the “truth” as I see it with the energy work and consecration that I do and they trust that opinion. There are plenty of “psychics” who just call themselves psychics because it’s an easy job. People will come because they’re emotional.18 For me, I’ve always loved people—I’ve always been a talker and a counselor by nature, so it’s no surprise I found myself here. I couldn’t give you a percentage because I think it happens in any profession. It’s just when you’re dealing with emotions, people that have died, it’s a lot more intense so people look at it as a lot worse—and I’d say it is.

  McAfee: Did your family introduce or reinforce your belief in psychic phenomena?

  Alvarez: No. Both of my parents are heavy orthodox Christians—nondenominational. They don’t accept what I do and they feel I manipulate people. They’ve never had a reading from me and never seen any of my work. Naturally, they’re afraid of psychics. For me personally, I wouldn’t be able to do this if I felt that it was wrong in any way. I just wouldn’t be able to deal with all the stuff I deal with personally if I felt it was wrong … if I didn’t feel I was truly helping people.

  McAfee: Do you feel a sense of responsibility that comes with your abilities? Have you ever considered them a burden?

  Alvarez: Absolutely. I get people that call me and I do readings for free, my clients become friends—it’s more of a life guidance and they trust me to stay with them. But they change their minds all the time—people are so inconsistent that I’ll tell them, “This reading is based on where you are now and the things we talk about are based on you being healthy. If you have a break down and change your mind, the things I say are not going to happen.” So, it is about guidance. It is about someone that’s clear, unafraid of the world, unafraid of death, unafraid of pain. I’ve been through a lot … homelessness, family abandonment, all that stuff. I understand pain, so I reach people on that level. I think that most people that come for a psychic reading—they’re in pain. They need counseling but they want that spiritual guidance and that intuitive … “There’s an energy that knows what’s going on with me outside of what I’m telling people.”

  McAfee: Have you had your powers tested under laboratory conditions? Would you be willing to undergo such testing?

  Alvarez: I would be willing. I’m fascinated and interested myself to see where I fall. Because I’m so honest with my clients about what I can see and what I don’t and have them tell me when I’m wrong, and because I’m consistently validated,19 I want to know scientifically how it works. I don’t know and I don’t claim to know.

  McAfee: What was your most impressive vision or reading? Have you foretold any large-scale events?

  Alvarez: Yeah, the day before the Boston bombing. I was sitting with my fiancée in our apartment and I just felt—a lot of times you just feel an urge to do weird things, and I tell people if you think you’re psychic to be as weird as you’re intuitively feeling you are. So, my mind—or that voice—was telling me to get a piece of paper and a pen and just do something. I wrote “Boston Boston Boston Boston.” I could not stop writing Boston for like 20 minutes. I think I still have the piece of paper.20

  So, I was energetically tapping into something bad that was going to happen, but I didn’t write “Boston bombing” or “a bombing is going to happen.” A lot of times that’s what it is—your subconscious is tapping into something somewhere else.

  McAfee: I personally think that would be compelling evidence. The problem, though, is that most people do what you did—they write it down but then just tell it as a story later. If you were writing “Boston Boston Boston Boston” and you really had a sense that there was something important about it, then you should have dated it, recorded it with a video, and told everyone you knew—if you cared about scientific evidence.

  Alvarez: I didn’t know what was going to happen—I did feel it was bad, a very bad sense, and I did feel it was a specific energy trying to reach me. I honestly felt it was a human being that had died, a grandfather figure, that was trying to get a message to someone that was probably in Boston. I have no affiliation with Boston, never thought about Boston outside of a history class, and had never been there. So, to me and to the witness, it was very important. I didn’t know what it was and I think many people do that.

  McAfee: Have you ever worked with a law enforcement department or other crime-solving outfit? If so, what were the results?

  Alvarez: Finding lost people, I have no ability to do. Spirits don’t come to me, the dead don’t tell me where they are, and I would be too intimidated and too afraid to put my own reputation on the line. I think fear holds people that genuinely have a gift back because we don’t understand it and because people generalize it. I would be too afraid to put myself on the line to even test that where results are demanded.21 One on one it’s a lot easier because you’re able to connect personally and people will trust you on a personal level. I have had several people come to me when their child has ran away and I’ve been instrumental in helping them and they were clients I had already seen, so the connection—my relaxed energy—that openness has allowed me to be very instrumental … even a missing dog one time.22

  McAfee: Are you familiar with the practice of “cold reading”? Do you ever use this method with your clients?

  Alvarez: I’ve never studied cold or hot reading, I don’t read psychic books, I don’t follow any of the big psychics that have been proven or disproven, I’ve just come into it on my own. So, I understand what those terms are but I’ve never tried to do them. When someone sits down or calls me on the phone without ever seeing them, and I’m able to say things that connect with them instantly, that’s all that matters to me.23 Whether it’s something that is general or very specific, my concern is serving the person and their need right at that moment with as honest and accurate information as possible.

  McAfee: Have you ever gotten an important reading wrong? Is there a danger of causing real psychological or physical damage?

  Alvarez: There’s so much danger and that’s why I’m always as open as possible. I’m always as honest as possible. If someone asks me something and I have no idea how to even process it, if I can’t feel anything I’m confident about, I’ll tell them I have no idea and I don’t think you should be going to ask another psychic that question either.24 Have I been wrong? I’ve been wrong about small things. There have been two or three times when I’ve been wrong and the people themselves admitted, “I totally didn’t follow any of the things we talked about. I took another path,” or, “Something happened and I didn’t respond the right way.” So, it’s very validating for me,25 but yes, you know there’s a bit of danger, but I think it falls more with mediumship—people that have crossed over and the expectation there of connecting. But I’m always very realistic.

  After the interview, I allowed Alvarez to give me a demo
nstration of his abilities. He said it was much easier to show his talents than to discuss them. After a 30-minute reading, in which we talked about everything from romantic relationships to traveling to Europe, I was thoroughly impressed … with his ability to read and interpret visual and verbal cues. I don’t think Alvarez is a psychic with supernatural abilities, but it was interesting to see how he was able to play off of hits and move right past the misses. I also noticed that, as the individual being read, I had the urge to tell him (either verbally or through facial expressions) when he got something right. Even from a skeptical perspective, it was difficult to suppress that desire and he was able to use that information well. Alvarez made a number of predictions for me, including that I’d definitely suffer from “severe digestion issues” within three months of our talk, but none of them have come to fruition.26

  “CELEBRITY PSYCHIC” JUSSTINE K

  I learned a lot from my interview with the American Buddha, but I also wanted to profile somebody who people knew nationally… a famous psychic that is well established in the industry. I first reached out to the Long Island Medium herself, Theresa Caputo, for an interview, but unfortunately I didn’t receive a response from her representatives. The next medium on my short list was Jusstine K., a “celebrity psychic” who has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Lifetime, and more media outlets over the course of her decades-long career. She has reportedly done readings for a number of celebrities, including Eva Longoria, Carmen Electra, Teri Hatcher, and others. She also said she was hired for Ellen Degeneres’ birthday party.

  I reached out to Jusstine by e-mail and told her I was an author interested in interviewing her in exchange for her normal hourly rate, $375. She seemed pleased at first and we began hammering out the details, but after a couple of hours I received a different type of message. She said she checked me out online and that she should have done so prior to responding in the first place.

  “You might be better off finding someone who isn’t as smart or conscious as I am to go to battle with,” Jusstine wrote in a brief message. “There are plenty of idiots out there who would be a better match for what you’re trying to do than I.”

  I informed Jusstine that my intentions were pure and that, as a journalist, I wasn’t looking to “go to battle” with anyone. I was just looking for some answers to basic questions about her career, I told her. She reluctantly agreed to the meeting after my explanation, stating in the next e-mail that she believes “99.9 percent of what is in the psychic and spiritual world is crap” and that she doesn’t want to be “grouped up with ever other psychic on Yelp.” I met her about two weeks later at her Los Angeles residence.

  McAfee: I noticed that, after you looked up my name online, you were a little bit hesitant to meet with me and wanted to cancel the session. Have you had problems with skeptics in the past? Are you able to read people better if they have faith in your abilities?

  Jusstine: I don’t get a lot of that. Whatever you put your energy into expands, so if you’re a skeptic you’re gonna find stuff to prove that it’s not real, right? And if you’re someone who truly wants healing, and is in a good relationship with yourself and working on that, then you will have the benefits of that. I can’t read everyone; I don’t want to read everyone. I am not your average psychic. I definitely do my best to weed out people … in this world, people are really unbalanced and they also just want people to do things for them and predict fluffy rainbows and unicorns, and that is not the work that I do. So, I am very lucky I have very little kind of skepticism … it’s more about dealing with people that are really unbalanced and perhaps have an expectation of what they think this is gonna be.

  With the work that I do—and I don’t in any way want this in any way to sound egotistical—it’s just in doing what I’ve done for 27 years, and studying what I have studied in that 27 years, it’s much different than most of what’s out there. Most people think that the psychic thing is like a game and they want to talk to spirits and all that, but they don’t understand and realize what is really going on and how it really works. So I have found that I really truly can help people to release energies that have been controlling them their whole lives, or lifetimes, and in that sometimes there’s a detox effect where the energy that gets released is kind of pissed that it’s being released, so it will come and beat that person up afterwards. For me, the only thing that’s uncomfortable in the work that I do is dealing with the aftereffects of if someone is really inundated with energies that want to keep them exactly where they are and not allow them to change, and then that energy comes in and makes them think I’m the bad guy and I’m horrible and then they come after me online, or something like that. That is really more the nightmare that I experience in my life, and how I so do my best to weed out those crazies.

  I’m sure as you read, there are all these amazing stories of stuff I’ve done online, on Yelp, and then some 26-year-old girl will read that and not even research who I am and set up an appointment and think because she’s paying … like I don’t want to read anyone who can’t afford my rate—and that doesn’t mean put it on a credit card and pay it off. Like I only want to read people who can pay my rate in a way that doesn’t change their life and isn’t a hardship for them because then consciously they handle it because I believe in equal energy exchange. So there’ll be some 26-year-old girl who just will think she can come and expect me to tell her (future) husband’s name, which I get that stuff if somebody is ready and it’s there, but if you’ve not done any work in your own life to heal yourself and in your relationship with yourself, then it’s not gonna be a good experience for you.

  McAfee: You just touched on something that I saw on your website, which was, “If you cannot afford a session with me, it simply is not the right time to work together.” I know you just went into that, but can you elaborate a little bit more? Could there theoretically be somebody who is ready spiritually, but not ready financially for a reading?

  Jusstine: Well, look, that’s just the rules for how I’ve set up my life and what I want in my life. It’s like I’ve spent 27 years getting to this point to know that what I do is priceless. Like I have named best-selling books that still to this day… my God, if I had one penny for each one of those books I’d be very rich. How do you put a price on helping someone like completely change a life-long pattern? To me, you know, I’m really comfortable with my rate and if someone has an issue or asks for a discount I just know that they’re not ready. They can’t have what I have to offer them and I don’t want to… as much as I would love to help everyone in the world, I have found other ways to really truly help. So yeah, it’s just to me how I’ve set up my life and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to even understand that. It’s just what works for me.

  McAfee: You’ve been doing psychic readings for 27 years now. Can you tell me some of the most impressive future predictions you’ve made? Have you foretold any large-scale events?

  Jusstine: Well, I don’t do like worldly events. I don’t predict like worldly stuff. I’m a transformationalist, so I’m really about changing individual people. I’ve done stupid crap, like E! gave me 50 names one year of who is going to be nominated for the female comedy category and I got them all right and we did this piece online. But to me that’s so, like, meaningless, you know? It just proves that psychic ability is real, but I think it’s just, for me, the stories of people that have been so stuck in their life or so … people that have gone from being incredibly depressive and not wanting to live who have experiences of then turning around and loving their life. Those are the things that I think are what make my life worth living.

  McAfee: I have questions about that part of your job, too, but right now I’m wondering about predictions.

  Jusstine: You know, I did a Mark Burnett show where I gave very, very specifics and numbers and stuff like that and that stuff all happened on camera … it was done in such a cheesy way. The thing that was such a bummer for me is the first
year that the Oscars were the Academy Awards, ABC did this segment that was a bookie in Vegas, Entertainment Weekly, and me, and we all did this amazing preshow, taped, and it was like the most amazing thing I ever filmed and ABC hired me for their dinner party the night before. And because the celebrities started arriving so early that first year, the segment didn’t run. I was going to wake up and be like all around the world the next day … the world would know of me, but it didn’t happen. So…

  McAfee: You say you’re “not like other psychics” and you’ve even criticized other so-called psychics who you claim give your profession a “bad name,” but you’ve also said you believe everyone is born with clairvoyant abilities. Can you tell me about what makes a psychic good or bad and how customers can tell the difference?

  Jusstine: I don’t think I criticize—I think I educate. Absolutely having an intuition is a natural gift that we have, right? Yet we are raised in this society where we have no permission to use it, and so just like someone who goes to the gym and works out every day, they’re going to have big muscles, right?

  I’m going to explain to you how psychic ability works, and then I’ll tell you what I’ve experienced and how my own life has changed in the last five years. All psychic ability is communicating with spirit, and spirits are those that have passed over, right? But just because someone dies doesn’t mean they can see all and know all. Your life on the other side is a lot like the life you’re living now—you just lose your physical body. So if you were mentally ill or emotionally unbalanced, you’re not going to magically be free of all that. You have just lost your physical body. That’s why people that take their own life and think they’re going to get out of all their pain and suffering—they now have just screwed themselves up even way more because they have lost their opportunity to work out what’s going on in the physical. So there are all kinds of people that are running around wanting to be psychic and open up their psychic ability and they’re communicating with spirit, but those spirits aren’t necessarily tapped into what’s highest and best. They’re just like people who are messed up in the physical world and play games with other people and want your attention.