UPDATE: There is a Psychic Fair Saturday in Bremerton. The item on our calender states, “This event features a day of enlightenment and healing provided by the area’s most gifted psychics and healers.”

This may not surprise you. Not once in my life did I ever think my dead relatives would communicate with me while I was sitting in a trailer in a South Kitsap neighborhood.

This story began with a walk I made in downtown Bremerton last week, where on a utility pole I saw advertised a woman from Scotland was offering a class in beginning mediumship. That flyer seemed to have the ingredients to an interesting story. Who among you knew there might be that kind of interest here? Seattle, sure, but Kitsap?

Catherine Mccafferty, known professionally in her role as clairvoyant and spiritualist as Cathy Mac, is here from Arrochar, Scotland until Oct. 14. She came at the invitation of her sister, Port Orchard resident Margaret Boosinger, who Thursday was appropriately dressed in a “Ghostbusters” T-shirt. Boosinger came to the U.S. years ago as a Navy wife.

The class was supposed to be all day Friday for $150 at Bremerton’s Quality Inn & Suites. It turned out there were no takers. Mccafferty now attributes that to the price, one that was recommended to her by a California spiritualist. People will apparently pay that kind of money there, she said, but not here.

That doesn’t mean there is no interest in that brand of spiritualism here. On a visit to a farmer’s market Mccafferty said she visited with a woman reading Tarot cards and has heard of others in the county. In the phone book there is one “Spiritual Consultant” in the Yellow Pages, between “Spices” and “Sporting Goods-Repair.” There are also psychics in the book and online.

The abilities Cathy Mac says she has of receiving messages from spirits passed is one her sister shares and is trying to improve. The two had tried to get those improvements made over the phone, but it wasn’t working. So Boosinger put up the $700 for Mccafferty’s round trip to Washington.

Our European guest received her certification in February following three years of study at the UK arm of the International Spiritualist Federation. The organization’s chief aim, according to its Web site is to advance spiritualism as a “science and philosophy.”

Mccafferty herself got into the practice after years of having enough experiences to finally convince herself she had the gift. She didn’t always believe it. “You think yourself crazy sometimes,” she said. The catalyst for her was when a family member died. The man’s wife was wanting a message from her late husband, so the group of them went to a spiritualist church. Mccafferty said the message came through her.

The money she earns, she said, she gives to charities looking for a cure for multiple sclerosis, an ailment that has her 26-year-old daughter wheelchair bound. Although the Bremerton class fizzled, she said she’s stilling willing to offer readings for, say, a small group of people for a smaller donation.

When I contacted her and found out the class was canceled, she said she was willing to do a demonstration. I arranged a time and a photographer. It didn’t dawn at me at the time that the demonstration would be a reading specifically for me. As the hour came closer, though, I did realize this thing was likely to be personal. I went in nervous.

Mccafferty carries a comforting air about her, though, as does Boosinger. Neither asked me anything about myself, which was reassuring. Mccafferty explained that legitimate spiritualists operate under the instructions, “Don’t feed the medium.” My instructions were to answer “yes” or “no.”

Mccafferty pulled out a pack of “Messages from the Angels” cards and began shuffling. Laying down cards on the table she picked up one at a time and gave me messages she said were from deceased ancestors and those of my wife. Boosinger also helped point out some of the things she saw on the cards.

I won’t bother trying to determine here in this blog entry whether what the Scottish woman visiting her sister told me was true. I went in a skeptic and came out no more convinced. Some things didn’t make any sense, but might later, Mccafferty said. The ideas were vague enough to believe that a skilled huckster could perhaps pull off what looks like spiritual connection. I don’t think Mccafferty is a con, because I believe that at least she believed what she was telling me.

True or not, some of what she said was nice to hear.

This next bit is where it will go off the rails for many of you. Mccafferty said she had her only celebrity experience before coming over here. Marilyn Monroe told her, she said, “I didn’t O.D.” When asked what happened, Monroe was reported to have said, “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”

I doubt that closes any books on that conspiracy. I found a psychic website that said Monroe visited a lot of psychics when she was alive, but also said she mostly haunts sites around Los Angeles and that other psychics have said her death was an accident, not a suicide. There are other psychics who side with Cathy Mac.

Another psychic says Monroe wants Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to buy her old house.

OK then. More important than that to me, though, is the good fortune coming my way, a kind of a windfall, Mac said.

You want some of that kind of news? Cathy Mac can be reached at (360) 434-4542 or at SpiritualistCathyMac@wavecable.com.

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