- by Lisa Cardillo Rose
- Post Staff Reporter
- A blond woman is sitting
on a pastel sofa, her eyes closed and her stocking feet flat on a
carpeted platform in front of her. Her head moves slowly, side
to side.
- The room is silent except
fro the sound of measured breathing, broadcast by microphone to a
small audience.
- "Good evening, my
friends," a deep, soothing voice begins. "Very nice
to be back with you again. This is wonderful tonight.
The energy is so great...very good."
- "My, my, my, we have
some new people here with us. And some of you are probably
saying to yourself, 'Is this real or is it not real?' Well, we
have to allow you to make up your own minds to what you see right
now."
- It is a Friday night at
the Positive Living Center in Hartwell, and the woman on the
platform is Cincinnati psychic Patricia Mischell.
- The voice, she says, is
not hers, but that of St. Therese de Lisieux, the 19th-century
Carmelite nun who is known to Catholics as "the Little
Flower."
- When Mrs. Mischell goes
into a trance at these meetings, she believes she is able to serve
as a "channel" or medium who allows spirits from different
dimensions to communicate through her.
- The practice of
channeling, while not new, has gotten a boost in popularity recently
from actress Shirley MacLaine's best-selling books about her
experiences.
- Believers in so-called
"new-age" philosophy are buying books by the millions,
betting on the healing power of crystals and providing a growing
audience for workshops about reincarnation, astrology, channeling
and other cosmic themes.
- Because of that popular
fascination with new-age ideas, some channelers are making a
bundle. J.Z. Knight - a Washington woman who claims to channel
a 34,000-year old spirit named Ramtha - attracts hundreds to
seminars costing as much as $450 per person.
- Mrs. Mischell, known to
many Cincinnatians by her Sunday afternoon radio show on WCKY and
her regular appearances on Bob Braun's TV show, says her approach to
channeling is different. She says that the spirit she calls
"Sister Therese" forbids her from making a profit on her
channeling experiences.
- The positive Living Center
has been hosting speakers and putting on psychic demonstrations for
a year at Friday sessions costing $10. The purported voice of
St. Therese began appearing late one evening in July, but Mrs.
Mischell says any donations for that part of the night must go to
spread the spirit's message.
- Mrs. Mischell, a Fairfield
resident, says St. Therese "has explicitly, over and over,
repeated, 'If you do this and you make money off of this... If
you're going to fatten your pocket off of me, then I will
leave.'
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- "She doesn't want me
to be the guru. She doesn't want herself to be that... She
constantly tells people to glorify God and not to glorify her or
myself.
- Nonetheless, Mrs.
Mischell's channeling claims didn't meet with enthusiasm from
representative of the Catholic Church who were interviewed.
- "The church doesn't
sanction spiritualism or anything of the like," Carl
Eifert, spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference, said of
channeling. The church believes in spirits, he said but not in
spiritualism.
- And, while the church does
investigate unusual phenomenon, Mrs. Mischell's experiences wouldn't
qualify for examination because they haven't had a widespread impact
on the Catholic community, said the Rev. Theodore Kosse, spokesman
for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
- If the concept of St.
Therese as a messenger is controversial, the message during a recent
session was not. the voice denounced bigotry, pollution and
feuding between religious factions, speaking of a kind God.
- "If I could say one
thing to all of you as to what God would want for you here in life,
it would be to find and to truly know (your0self... to go within
your spirit and to calm the self inside, to be able to move in that
oneness and speak to God," the voice said.
- She offered encouragement
to those who wished they could see God, saying she had those same
desires in her lifetime. When she died, she said she was told
in heaven: "If you would have looked up, you would have
seen God kissing you every morning... (The) light of the day was
given so it could wipe away all your memories of yesterday."
- Mrs. Mischell, 52 says she
has been channeling the spirit of St Therese for 13 years, but the
voice only recently began speaking at public meetings.
- During that time,
Mrs. Mischell said the vice has made accurate predictions,
including forecasts of last summer's drought and fires at
Yellowstone.
- When Mrs. Mischell begins
to channel, she says, she feels sleepy and then sees a vision of a
bench in a beautiful garden. After falling asleep, she says,
she is unable to hear or recall anything said while in a trance.
- A quivering voice with an
accent - much different from the psychic's own voice- is heard by
listeners during the sessions.
- Mrs. Mischell says
"Sister Therese" has asked that any donations be used to
produce prayer cards and pamphlets with a religious message.
She says the Carmelite nun wants the cards to include a prayer given
by an angel to the children at Fatima.
- The psychic, a converted
Catholic who no longer practices that religion, says she doesn't
mind if people find her stories unbelievable, and she isn't
surprised at the Catholic church's reaction.
- "I don't think they
could handle it in any other way...they have to be true to
themselves," she
says.
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