Confessions of a Psychic

A free session with a psychic. Who couldpass it up? Go ahead, this one's on us.

BY HER COUNT, 5,000 CLIENTS—FROM WALL STREET TYCOONS AND OSCAR-WINNING ACTORS TO TYPISTS—HAVE VISITED MARY T. BROWNE AT HER GREENWICH VILLAGE APARTMENT SINCE SHE STARTED HER PRACTICE 15 YEARS AGO. ARGUABLY NEW YORK'S MOST PROMINENT PSYCHIC, SHE'S FORETOLD THEIR FUTURES, READ THEIR PASTS, AND PUT THEM IN TOUCH WITH THE DEAD—WHETHER IN HEAVEN OR HELL. AND ALL FOR JUST $200 AN HOUR! INTRIGUE GOT THE BEST OF US. WE HAD TO KNOW WHAT KIND OF METAPHYSICAL BANG WAS BEHIND THOSE BUCKS. SO JOIN US FOR LUNCH WITH MARY T. AND GET THE INSIDE SCOOP ON HER NEW BOOK, MARY T. REFLECTS ON THE OTHER SIDE (FAWCETT COLUMBINE, 1994).

PT: How much confidence do you have in your predictions of your clients' futures?

MB: I am not 100 percent accurate. I don't think anyone really is. But I stand very firm on being accurate a good deal of the time. Even so, I hope people use judgment and weigh the pros and cons when I make a prediction.

PT: Do you ever withhold information?

MB: Yes, I do. When I was younger I may have been too harsh with information. But, after working professionally for 15 years, you learn that certain things will not help the person if said right then. For instance, say someone is very, very upset about her marriage--it is not working at all. She is very unhappy and I see a divorce very clearly. But the client still needs to psychologically work through the problem; she still needs to feel she has done everything humanly possible. So, with information like that, the person needs to go through the steps.

PT: Where does this knowledge come from and how does it come to you?

MB: Sometimes it is images, which is called clairvoyance. When I see people who have died and passed over into the spirit world, it's almost as if they are flashing on a movie screen in front of me. But most of the time the information comes to me in words through my head. It's like turning on a radio. And it comes to me from, I believe, a spiritual place.

PT: Have you ever been scared by what you saw?

MB: Yes. Through the help of my teacher, Lawrence Hill, I saw the dark side, the realm known as hell. It was a land of no shapes, devoid of love, light, and hope--nothing but the torment of shapeless beings living in their own mistakes. And there was a smell to it. It was a terrible odor psychically, like burning rubber.

PT: What do you say to people who would say that these are the visions of someone who is mentally disturbed? Might a paranoid schizophrenic describe hell the same way or with the same intensity?

MB: Well, if I were sitting on the 57th street bus and started talking about visions of hell out of the blue, people might think I'm crazy and psychotic, not psychic. I can understand that point of view. But I do come to people with a history. After 15 years and two books, I have shared what I have seen and my life's work. So I think that saves you from a great deal of, "Oh, she's crazy."

PT: What about the psychiatrist who spends 15 years preparing him- or herself to counsel people? Couldn't he or she argue that the psychic doesn't have the equivalent licensing or training?

MB: Everybody should be aware that a psychic is not a licensed therapist. I find that some clients are so distraught about one thing, that even if you try to move them into the future or the next step, you are pulled right back into this particular issue. It is so involved in their aura that to move on you have to find the reasoning or explanation. Most of it is childhood, so they need the 7,000 hours of therapy, not the hour with the psychic.

So it's a very different service and we don't have the same criteria. That's why people should do their homework before they just talk to a psychic. With the psychiatrist, the American Medical Association does a lot of your homework for you: Doctor So-and-So went to such and such school, has been practicing for 22 years, and here's his diploma. But that doesn't guarantee that your psychiatrist is balanced. In choosing a psychic, you need word of mouth, to read their book, or to talk to a client.

PT: When I went into a trial session with you, you came up with a car accident--the circumstances and color of a car--I had been in. Then you told me about something that had happened to my mother 22 years ago that had changed her whole life. A month later I mentioned it to my mom at the breakfast table. Her coffee cup was literally shaking and she said, "Yes, that's right, and it was exactly 22 years ago." And that was something I didn't know.

MB: Well I wasn't reading your mind.

PT: That's what I am saying. It is not a part of me, so where does it come from?

MB: Well, it is part of the consciousness and part of the record of your soul development. That's the gift and I gave you verification of it. But I am not a circus performer; I don't do phenomenology by the hour.

The life of a person is quite complex and you can't touch upon everything in an hour. But some images will spiritually or psychically be more important, so they may be shockingly clear or accurate. Hopefully sessions will ultimately help people come to terms with their life and help them deal with what's happening right now.

PT: So do you think that there is a consciousness that we reflect but that we are not aware of ourselves?

MB: There is a record of every single moment of every single life and existence. Think of your physical body as a glove that you take off when you die, but you still have a soul. As a person is reborn with a new body and a new personality, I think we are also reborn with a new memory.

PT: Does anything carry over?

MB: Often you carry over personality tendencies, tests and lessons, and family connections. People are able, now, to have glimpses of things in their past, with proper professional help.

But I think we learn most about our past lives by looking at this one.

PT: Why is it that no one remembers being a schmuck? They were always Napoleon or Peter the Great.

MB: I have a lot of Emily Brontes and Cleopatras. But if you have the personality traits, gifts, and talents of Cleopatra, who brought a country to its knees, I think you are going to have quite a bit of moxy in this life. You are not going to be constantly bombarded with an unsuccessful personal life. But we need to be practical and focus on this life, not the past life, not the next life, not the afterlife. The here and now. Everything we need for our development is here. Yes, there are mysteries and there are people who seek answers in the metaphysical, became the physical does not last.

PT: You have just written a book about death. It was once a topic nobody wrote about. Now there is a sudden acceptance of the physical reality of death and a spiritual approach to it. What's going on?

MB: I think the AIDS epidemic has opened people up to the discussion of death. When I was younger, I don't remember too many 30-year-olds passing over. We had no epidemic that took the lives of vital, creative young people. Faced with the death of their friends or significant others, people want to understand and explore life and death.

There has also been an opening of a more spiritual discussion of death. It is amazing how many people have had a miraculous experience connected with the death of a family member or loss--like being visited by their father after his death--and how they want to share it.

PT: Do you get any angry calls from priests and rabbis?

MB: Some people sadly have a misconception that a psychic gift is dark. And I think that comes from a gross misunderstanding. It is misunderstood as witchcraft or controlling.

PT: Do they fear that psychics will be confused with religious prophets?

MB: Right, thank you. Religious leaders first tried to stop psychics because they feared they would lose control over people if someone could tell them their future. Those poor people in Salem, I mean, how awful. That was a dark point in history. I don't even like to stop for gas in Salem just because of the vibration.

But Jesus was psychic. He told Thomas, "Before the cock crows, you will betray me three times." Tell me, is that not a psychic prediction?

PT: Yes, but he was extraordinarily well connected.

MB: Well how nice to have a touch of that--though I am not in anyway implying any of us are at that level of development. But I listened to the most psychic man that ever lived. If you are going to walk in his footsteps, my goodness, what a perk to be psychic too.

But motivation has so much to do with the gift. If a psychic or a religious leader uses his or her position to control people, how awful. If you use it to help guide, and love people, how great. It is the motive behind the deed.

PT: How important was growing up in Iowa, an agrarian society, in your life? Did it have anything to do with how you look at growth and death and cycling?

MB: I am very grateful for Iowa. It is the basis for my emotional balance. I think Midwesterners are wonderful people. They are open, loving, pragmatic, and believe in afterlife and spirituality. My grandma Grace raised me with the tools to trust my judgment, to respect a gift, not to go loony-tunes about it.

Common sense reigned there. I think lot of life's problems that people think are psychological or spiritual are really just common sense.

People worry too much, instead of others taking action. They think too much about themselves and not the needs of others. But it is all basically a process of growth. That's why we are born, that's why we live on this side, then go to the other side, and come back until we do it right.

Life is all about getting it right and get it right when we master ourselves.

PHOTO: Mary T. Browne