"The best adventure is into the mysterious," according to Albert Einstein, as quoted in the final paragraph of Natasha Rosewood's debut book, Aaagh! I Think I'm Psychic (And You Can Be Too).
Recently launched at a series of events in Gibsons and Sechelt, the book is an adventure as unexpected as the lady herself - entertaining, humorous and with a minimum of New Age mumbo-jumbo.
Petite, blonde and smiling, the English-born Rosewood looks like a former flight attendant or ski bunny - which she was. But this is one tough lady, a survivor of a psychotic, verbally abusive mother - and a reluctant psychic.
Describing herself as a diviner and facilitator, Rosewood says, "Developing a psychic ability is not merely about being able to tune in to your own or somebody else's future. Nor is it confined to the healing of the spirit. When you open up your mind, you are embracing a much greater, more powerful, more loving, more exciting Universe with all its endless possibilities for joy."
I Think I'm Psychic is a straightforward and absorbing account of Rosewood's struggle for self-acceptance and self-discovery, as well as a description of her development of the psychic abilities she spent much of her life denying.
Working her way through 1980s behavioral modification seminars like The Mastery and EST, Rosewood kept meeting up with other psychics and was led, step by gentle step, to the realization of her own gifts and abilities.
Some of the stories are downright creepy.
Her account of holing up in an Oregon motel room, absorbed by hours-long trances and visions, guided by something that identified itself to her as Divine Intelligence consumes three chapters and is the weakest point of the book. The sessions, which Rosewood calls her initiation as a psychic, were recorded by an observer and descend into the realm of I-see-dead-people, weird science and, yes, a bit of New Age mumbo-jumbo. For the most part, Rosewood does not take herself too seriously and her humour and snappy writing style move the narrative along at a good pace, which is not quite disrupted by the "Metaphysical Endnotes" - life-lessons for the would-be psychic - at the end of each chapter. Following a series of soul-jarring events, Rosewood traded her Whistler ski-bunny lifestyle for that of a full-time Sunshine Coast psychic in 1997. She has never regretted the decision, nor looked back. Rosewood now jets around the world to offer readings and psychic development workshops, in which participants are trained to listen to and trust their own intuition as a first step in their spiritual healing.
Aaagh! I Think I'm Psychic (And You Can Be, Too!) by Natasha J. Rosewood is available for $28.25 at Coast Books and Talewind Books or can be ordered online at www.natashapsychic.com.
