| IT'S IN THE CARDS, STARS, ETC.
COLUMN OFFERS ADVICE ON FUTURE, PAST
By Gwen Florio, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
After 16 months, D. S. M. of Morton was still carrying a torch for
Brent. Should she let go?
H. M. of Glenolden was a single mom who lacked a man in her life. Would
there be one?
Standard questions, with standard answers (D. S. M. should forget the bum, and H. M.
should be patient).
And then there are the standard deviations.
Such as L. S. of Springfield, who wanted to know if she and her husband had been
married in a previous life. And by the way, what was the rosy face that had mysteriously
appeared on her wall?
Or Joan, of Holmes. Why does she always dream of being trapped in a filthy house with
her mother?
As advice columns go, this one is somewhere in the stratosphere.
It's the work of Robert E. Graham, a welder in his previous life, who quit his day job
to become the astral Ann Landers of southeastern Delaware County.
The 47-year-old self-described psychic writes a weekly column, "Everyday
Supernatural," that reaches the 50,000 readers of the southern and eastern editions
of Town Talk, a weekly Delaware County newspaper that is distributed free.
In a recent column, Graham told L. S. that she and her husband indeed had been married
before - in ancient East Africa. In those days, said Graham, their genders were reversed
and he was one of her many wives.
Graham himself says he has been a 16th-century Bavarian court astrologer, tortured on a
shipboard rack, and a slave picking cotton - a past that carried over into a childhood
habit in this life of plucking the stuffing from sofa cushions.
With us so far?
Lest your eyebrows be tickling your hairline at this point, keep in mind that Graham
has been making a living off his cosmic claims since 1979.
"I'm on my second and third generations (of clients) now," said the Parkside
resident.
Graham said he knew as a teenager that he was psychic, but didn't refine his talents
until the 1970s, when he and a friend in Denver would send telepathic messages to each
other for fun.
His first jobs involved readings - palm, tarot and astrological - in area restaurants;
then private consultations in his home, and now his column.
"I think (the column) gets good feedback," said Floyd Murray, Town Talk
editor. "There's a great deal of interest in this field."
Judging by the requests for advice, there's also a great deal of interest in money,
love and health - in that order.
Money comes first, partly because of the recession, but mostly because "if the
money's not right, love can go down the tubes," said Graham.
He estimates that he sees 25 people a week, about 80 percent of them women. Private,
hourlong readings are $50; 20-minute phone consultations are $35, and groups of five or
more are $25 a person.
"The most interesting woman I ever read for was 86," he said. She sought
advice on how to invest her money, and how to get her boyfriend to stop pestering her to
marry. "Now that's optimism!" he said.
An 11-year client of Graham's, who did not want to be identified, called him "an
extremely clairvoyant individual."
"Everything he has said comes true. . . . He told me in '81 I would be continuing
on in school, when I had no inkling of doing anything of the sort. Now, here I am in
graduate school and I'm going on to get my doctorate," the client said.
The client said the consultations with Graham were "a good way to keep more
open-minded and aware. . . . It keeps me aware of things to look for or avoid."
There is really no way to tell whether a psychic's advice is legitimate, said Richard
S. Broughton, director of research at the Institute of Parapsychology in Durham, N.C.
"Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding," Broughton said. If what a psychic
predicts doesn't come true, that's a good reason not to trust him or her, he said.
"It's simply common sense."
Graham takes great pains to satisfy the eyebrow-raisers. He dresses conservatively when
doing readings (he abandoned a tie as too constricting). A cleaning service maintains
order in his apartment, where he does his readings, although it's a bit cluttered with
books on psychic phenomena.
And he has a money-back offer for people who aren't happy with their readings.
When he went into his business full time, he said, "my mother thought I was going
to starve to death." Instead, he recently cut back his readings to three days a week.
That gives him more time for the column - "my life's accomplishment" - and a
book he is writing.
Its heroine is psychic - as are most people, Graham contends.
"It takes four things to be psychic: Sit down. Sit still. Shut up. And listen.
"If you shut your own brain up, you can hear other people."
All content Copyright 1992 Philadelphia Inquirer
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