Giving a psychic reading to a Sunday morning audience at the cinema may seem like an unusual way to launch a book. But then Gibsons' Natasha Rosewood is not your usual author. The second in a series of self-help books entitled Aaagh! I Thought You Were Dead (And Other Psychic Adventures) was launched Oct. 25 at Gibsons Cinema before a small audience.
Although the timing was just before Halloween, this was no ghostly horror event. It was a serious and sensitive reading based on various questions from participants.
Members of the audience tentatively put up their hands, one by one, in a manner both poignant and sincere to ask whether their late children, husbands or parents had any messages for them from the afterlife. Rosewood tells readers in her book that she receives messages from the dead all the time, and she seeks advice from them to answer the questions put to her by the living.
At her Sunday reading, she sometimes hit a wrong note in her answers; mostly she was right on. Apparently the spirits may be trying to communicate with their loved ones for any number of reasons: to apologize for something they did, to urge a mother or daughter to get a new cat, volunteer for a community service or to look carefully into the finances involved in a new home all sound advice.
After the two-hour session, the evaluations were positive.
One new fan said the psychic had made everyone feel very safe and she appreciated the opportunity to ask a question voluntarily. Another was surprised that her nine-year-old sat still during the entire session.
There is very little to dislike in this lively, informative book except perhaps the goofy title, and that is testimony to Rosewood's sense of fun. It became apparent when the author released her first self-published book in 2004, Aaagh! I Think I'm Psychic (and You Can Be Too), that humour plays a role in this deadly serious subject (pun intended). A psychic's life can be funny, and this latest book is full of entertaining stories sandwiched between sections of thoughtful comments. In one story she tells of visiting a haunted inn in Halifax and describing the ghostly visitors to the innkeeper. In another, she gives a sceptical police detective an intuitive description of who broke into a psychics' building in Vancouver, just before an actual eye witness gave the police the same description.
Sceptics are legion, and some of the stories are difficult to believe, particularly tales of possession and past lives, but Rosewood never loses sight of the fact that she's human, not an oracle.
"Many of my own clients will peer at me with suspicion, cynicism and outright disbelief in their eyes," she writes. "I don't have to be psychic to see what they are thinking Natasha is nuts!"
She goes on to explain how her predictions have often been validated.
"Two weeks, six months or five years after a reading I will hear the words, 'Natasha, now I understand what you meant!'"
With this book Rosewood also shows that she's matured into her role as coach with a willingness to give clients the tools to tap into their own psychic consciousness. The counselling sections of the book are helpful and intriguing on topics of interest to everyone. One section talks about nightmares and what they may be telling the dreamer. Another discusses soul retrieval a concept unfamiliar to most, but important in the psychic lexicon.
The author will be giving a reading (but not a psychic reading) from her book on Sunday, Nov. 22, at the Gibsons Public Library from 1 to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Books are available at local bookstores for $19.99 or through www.natashapsychic.com.
