Addressing what must have been a puzzled look on my face, she revealed that she was a professional psychic, having flown up from southern California to attend the workshop because of her friendship with Hardy and Jan. She went on to say that it was important I understand that I was very psychic. Furthermore, she was certain that a major part of my life's purpose was to use this natural ability for the benefit of others!
Now, you have to know that I wasn't even sure what a psychic was, and I doubted that she could be one, since she looked quite normal. After all, the old movies generally portrayed psychics as short, wearing ill-matched, second-hand clothing and looking like they had just escaped from a carnival!
Then, quite unexpectedly, Susan turned her gaze to the ceiling as if to reply to a question posed from above her head and over her shoulder. Following the direction of her gaze, yet seeing nothing, I debated about asking what had suddenly drawn her attention, but I decided to remain silent
"My spirit guides," she said, anticipating my question while maintaining her stare at a point in the air above the table. Holding up her hand to suspend further questions, she completed her silent exchange with whatever she seemed to perceive was up there.
"Spirit guides?" I asked quietly when she turned back to me, wondering whether I really wanted to pursue this whole line of thought with someone who had apparently gone over the edge. At the same time, I was fascinated and extremely curious about the bizarre situation.
She briefly explained that guides were her spiritual helpers, much like angels. They talked to her and gave her guidance.
"Of course," I replied in a low tone. I was wondering just how I could politely extricate myself from this bizarre dialogue. She returned her gaze to the ceiling again as if to complete a thought.
After a few moments of a scene that was clearly out of "Pretend Corner," down the block beyond Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, she abruptly concluded her private conversation. Turning back to me, she asked if I would be willing to try something which would prove that I truly had a psychic gift.
Having no other place to go and definitely intrigued, I said something like, "Sure, why not?" At the same time I felt apprehensive about what might occur.
Straightening up, she issued clear and specific instructions for me to target an individual within view of where we sat. She informed me that her guides would help me in detecting specific information about the person I had chosen and would provide me the convincing proof that I required.
"Be sure it's someone you have never met," she cautioned.
I peered out from the raised platform overlooking the lower floor of our pleasantly decorated Italian restaurant. Arbitrarily, I selected a fairly attractive woman about 30, wearing a fashionably tailored red dress, seated in a booth approximately 20 feet from where we sat.
Acknowledging my choice, Susan directed me to close my eyes and give myself complete permission to visualize a future event concerning the woman I had designated. She again assured me that her spirit helpers would assist me and that I should just let it happen.
If she meant to calm me with the assurance that her mysterious voices were going to speak to me, she had not read the situation accurately! Nevertheless, she was so convincing in her enthusiasm for whatever she thought might happen that I found myself caught up in this entire procedure in spite of the consequences.
"Make up a story as you did with my driver's license, and my guides will take care of the details," she advised.
With my heart making thumping noises that I thought might alert others at the table, I closed my eyes, certain that everyone in the restaurant would be staring directly at me. Susan coached me, advising me to breathe slowly and not to rush. She continued to remind me that I would receive whatever information her guides wanted me to know.
Obeying, I closed my eyes and waited for something to happen.
Nothing did!
"Don't try so hard," she cautioned. "You're doing fine; just let it happen."
Slowly, after a brief time elapsed, I became aware of what I can best describe as a visualization beginning to emerge in my mind's eye. The experience was not unlike playing a child's game in which a heroine is left in a perilous situation by a storyteller, and you use your imagination to construct an immediate means of rescuing her with some degree of plausibility.
Susan repeated the instruction to 'just let it happen" several more times. I cautiously began to fantasize that my heroine, the lady in the red dress, was engaged in what seemed to be a fight or struggle. I could see a man's hands grasping at her throat as if attempting to strangle her. After a brief struggle she fell to the floor, the hands remaining tightly wrapped around her neck.
As my imagined mental picture expanded, I became aware of another individual, a very large and clearly overweight person dressed in what I assumed was a white mechanic's uniform with a bright green belt at the waist. This third person seemed to be sitting on the woman, punching her repeatedly in the chest and upper body.
Then it was over! Only, unlike the children's game, I had not saved her from the hands of the villains!
I opened my eyes and, after some coaxing, related the story to Susan as I had experienced it. She listened quietly as I unraveled the wildly imaginative yarn. I felt completely drained, as if I had physically taken part in the struggle I had just created in my imaginative mind to amuse my unusual dinner companion.
After a pause that seemed hours long, I asked her what was next. A logical query, I thought, after following her strange instructions and rules.
"I guess you'll just have to wait and see," she responded.
I glanced over to the dinner table where my target was peacefully enjoying her meal. Everything seemed very much in order, nothing the least bit threatening in the offing.
As I was kicking around the odds of this elaborate fight scene actually taking place in this quiet and peaceful restaurant, I heard my name called from the other end of the table. In an attempt to dismiss what I had just envisioned, I shifted my attention to the conversation I was invited to enter.
About 15 minutes later, as we were engrossed in the laboriously detailed process of dividing the dinner check to second decimal accuracy, we were suddenly startled by a loud shout emanating from a nearby table.
My lady in the red dress had suddenly bolted to her feet and appeared to be choking, unable to breathe!
Her male companion, responding to her desperate situation, reached over and placed his hands around her neck in what was most likely an instinctive reaction to her inability to breathe. Struggling, she dropped to the floor, his hands still clutched tightly around her throat. Just then, a patron from a distant table rushed over, loudly declaring that she had training in CPR. This third person immediately straddled the struggling body on the floor and began pounding on her chest to dislodge whatever was stuck in her windpipe!
It was just as I had foreseen, except instead of being choked, she was choking on some food!
The difference between what I had visualized and what actually took place was due to misinterpretation. The "fight" I'd seen was in reality an offer of assistance. Instead of my pretty lady being strangled, the hands at her throat were trying to help. Rather than someone pounding her chest in a fight, someone was actually attempting to save her life!
As I replayed what I had recently seen in my mind, I realized that the rescuer was just as I had described her. What I assumed to be a mechanic's uniform was, however, a white pantsuit.
I know the first words out of my mouth were similar to the censored expletives that football coaches often shout just before the TV cameras cut away from the close-up shots on Monday Night Football. I don't know if I was