So, do psychics like Nadal really have insight? Can they actually communicate with the dead? Many people seem to think so. The Flushing Free Synagogue was packed with visitors from all walks of life, coming to experience the supernatural at the Queens Psychic Club’s biannual fair. Lisa Li said she joined the club after experiencing personal loss. “I was miserable. Some people told me there was a psychic club in Queens, and I live in Queens, so I went.” Li attended the club’s regular meetings and became friends with founder Bob Cecilio.
Cecilio started QPC in 1993 after he experienced a personal loss: his son Richard died of AIDS. Looking for answers, he and his wife, Dolores, went to medium George Anderson to connect with their departed son. They were surprised at how accurate Anderson’s reading was. They got another reading with John Edwards and Cecilio was hooked. He began taking classes to develop his own psychic intuition and founded the group shortly after.
Each month he invites speakers to lecture on all things occult at the synagogue. “Bob always makes sure the audience can ask questions. It’s always two-way communication, and you see people who have issues in their lives come and go and it’s like a little family, it’s cool,” Li said. Cecilio also televises the lectures on Queens Public Television as part of a program called “Psychic Awakening.”
At the fair, Li helped visitors book appointments with the 13 psychics, mediums and clairvoyants available. Some used crystal balls, others had goblets of water and more still had decks of cards. Psychics gave insight, clairvoyants saw the future and mediums contacted with the departed. “I just think it’s interesting. In my culture — Chinese culture — death is taboo,” Li said.
Upstairs, death was also the subject at hand. After Cecilio demonstrated a divining rod — a bent coat hanger with a piece of plastic at the end of it (used for non-verbal communication with the spirit world), Jesse Bravo, a Ricky Martin-esque character in a tight-fitting T-shirt, used his understanding of the psychic realm to discuss what happens when we die.
There will be light with density, cascading like a waterfall — a description reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s more supernatural tales. Bravo spoke of “spirit guides” and a “light at the end of a dark tunnel,” as the audience sat rapt.
It’s nice to think there are people waiting for us on “the other side,” and really, is the idea any more impractical than that of heaven? Mormons believe in spirit families, to be united in the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians filled tombs will goods to be used after death.
The psychic community has the feeling of a religious group, but one without any specific belief. They are open to all perspectives. It could be. Anything could be. And rather than finding infinite possibility frightening, they embrace it.
“It’s not about religion, it’s about spirituality,” Cecilio said, “We are all one.”
Swaranjit Singh, a Sikh wearing a turban who happened to wander into the fair, said Bravo’s lecture resonated with his beliefs. Cecilio invited him to come speak at a future meeting; he was interested in hearing what Singh had to say.
In a world filled with doctrine and absolutes, where wars erupt over religious disagreements, Cecilio’s brand of free inquiry and acceptance of various beliefs is refreshing.
Though psychics at the fair were paid for their services, Bravo questioned the abilities of certain mediums, warning of charlatans, whom he said prey upon patrons desiring to make contact with loved ones, sometimes charging an arm and a leg for fraud.
This discussion too was welcomed.
Queens Psychic Club
When: 7:30 p.m., first Wednesday of every month.
Where: Free Synagogue of Flushing, 41-60 Kissena Blvd.
Lectures on QPTV Channel 34 at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and 4 p.m. on Sundays.
Tickets: $8 for first meeting, $5 thereafter.
For more information, call (718) 762-1448.