My Previous Life

Friendless and Murdered in a Previous Life:
My Experience with a Recommended Psychic

by Ellen Weisberg

I have an open mind and believe in things many skeptical people don’t, such as the existence of a spiritual world. My recent decision to visit with a psychic was driven by this, as well as a nagging desire that was steadily morphing into a pressing need to know if my father, who passed away a couple of years ago, was still there. Wherever “there” was, so long as it was within reasonable reach of “here” and I could take solace in the knowledge that he was somewhere and somehow accessible and OK.

We had a few hopeful hints, including a bright light that flashed the night after he passed, in my mother’s room when she and I were trying to console each other. There were also the two trips my husband made to the post office to mail out boxes of donations of a book we had published that we had dedicated to my father, to “Poppy Joe.”

The song “The Candy Man” was playing when he walked into the post office the first time, which holds some significance since my father had worked as a candy wholesale distributor. The fact that we couldn’t remember the last time we’d heard “The Candy Man” playing on the radio also fed into our corroboration, although one could argue it was the month of October and, in recent years, it had become customary to celebrate Halloween every single day during the entire month.

My husband decided he was going to pay extra close attention to what music was playing when he dropped the rest of the boxes of books off the second time. Turns out it was Jimmy Hendrix’s “Hey, Joe.” While all this was well and good and fed beautifully into our desperation, my goal was to find an impartial stranger who was able to substantiate all that we, in our grief, wanted to believe was true.

I realize that all of this seems to contradict the fact that I’m a research scientist trained to form conclusions based on what is objectively there, and not what I subjectively wish to see. The thing is, much of what I observe in the form of “data” and use to interpret and learn something is based on the behavior of molecules that are invisible to the human eye. And yet to do my job I have no choice but to believe there is genuinely something there to probe and manipulate and poke at to get answers.

And I’m able to do this thanks to the work of scientific-minded souls over the course of centuries who devised elaborate methods allowing for indirect measurements and readouts of otherwise visibly undetectable stuff. So, given the miracles of science that I use and believe in every day and, given my insatiable curiosity of who we are and what drives us from the most basic molecular level to the most mysterious and likely astoundingly complicated spiritual level, I’m not so sure my open-mindedness is so contradictory to my chosen profession in life.

I’m one of those types who visits cemeteries on Halloween night, when the veil between the living and the dead is presumably at its thinnest, and I take photos in the darkness with the flash on. My hope, when I do this, is that I can capture fantastic images that I can try to convince both myself and others are not simply iPhone camera artifacts but rather netted catches hinting at an afterlife.

And in the time that I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen things that are hard to explain but easy to believe. They whisper in my ear that there may be more there than what our five senses alert us to.

In old 18th- and 19th-century New England burial sites, on All Hallows’ Eve, I caught what looked like ghostly formations. One took on the shape of a woman from a different era, clothed in what may have been a chemise, and perhaps a waistcoat, and possibly a petticoat.

I’ve seen some pretty wild-looking orbs, generally coming across as bright, colorful images that ranged from white to green to blue to red or purple. A couple of orbs photographed at Heart Pond Cemetery, right down the road from where we live in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, looked like faces with eyes and expressions. One, captured on Halloween night one year, looked like it had long, flowing hair, and another, caught on a different Halloween night the following year, looked like a bird-like head with an outstretched arm.

Broad daylight has yielded some surprises, too. One day, also in Heart Pond Cemetery, I captured shadows in trees creating a whole-body image with a face, hair, and torso, all having fallen into place with the proper and expected dimensions. There were interesting-looking faces in the trees, as well.

I photographed sunlit patterns on trunks resembling a skull-like face amidst other faces, on Halloween day in Gilson Road Cemetery, a reputedly haunted New Hampshire graveyard with a history of Indian massacres and at least one zany medicine man. In the Hilldale Cemetery, an allegedly haunted Massachusetts-based resting place with numerous buried Civil War veterans, shadows cast on a headstone looked as though they could pass for a disembodied, Lucifer-like face.

And in North Cemetery, in Princeton, Massachusetts, I photographed an alarmingly detailed image of a young woman, complete with eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, neckline, and dark hair, on the back of a gravestone of an infant named “Lawra” who died in the 1800’s and was buried next to two young siblings and their mother. Lawra’s grave was precariously and uniquely positioned in strangely eroded soil. Although the back of her marker looked like a painted portrait, upon close inspection it was comprised only of moss, lichen, weathered stone, and fortuitous shadowing.

Images of a person screaming, and a man’s profile and a baby crying were pointed out by others as surrounding the image of the woman. I didn’t see these initially but, once I was made aware of them, they were hard to unsee. It was also hard for me to resist putting it all in the context of the 10-month-old girl named Lawra who seemed somehow linked to them. How did she die so young? Given that she passed away in the 1800’s, was it cholera? Tuberculosis? Or something a story on the back of her gravestone was trying to tell us?

Was it just pareidolia?

Perhaps.

Or was it a way for the spiritual world to communicate with the living through our natural surroundings?

Returning to the seeming dichotomy of being a researcher with a penchant for and belief in the supernatural, I believe... because I am curious by nature. I believe... because I have dedicated much of my adult life to putting faith in what is not tangible to the senses. I believe... because I have lost people I love, and I do not want to believe they are truly lost. And, if there is a chance that the spiritual realm might use things like trees, leaves, and stone to communicate with the living, then I couldn’t think of a reason why spirits wouldn’t use the living themselves to communicate.

That is, unless the living is the psychic I recently contacted.

She had received a glowing recommendation of a friend of mine, whose daughter reputedly had a reading with insights that were “spot on” when she met with this psychic in person in Orlando, Florida, as part of the “Have a Magical Day” Disney experience. I texted this woman, who for privacy purposes I’ll refer to as “Wanda,” and she texted me back and told me I could have a psychic reading over the phone, and all would be a go after payment cleared.

Right out of the gate, she paused, drew a deep breath, and said, “Okay, I’m just going to tell you...”

I finished swallowing the last of the tuna fish I’d whipped up before getting snuggly with a blanket on a couch in our family room. My guard was down, as my friend who recommended Wanda had insisted that it was her policy to deliver only positive, uplifting insights and nothing negative. I assumed after the first 30 seconds into my reading that this policy was reserved only for Disney World customers.

“The last four to five years have been pretty bad, and particularly troublesome for you, am I right? You’ve been stuck...”

I envisioned The Family Feud wrong answer buzzer sound. The last four to five years have actually been the most fulfilling and gratifying in my entire life, both personally and professionally.

“I see you’re completely healthy.”

Family Feud wrong answer buzzer sounds again. You mean apart from the diagnoses of cancer and a neurological condition?

“I see you have two children,” Wanda said.

“No,” I said. “I only have one child.”

“Only one? I see two. You were meant to have two children. Did you have a miscarriage?”

“No,” I said.

“Okay, well, you were definitely destined to have a second child. I would consider adopting one.”

At 56? The adopted child would have to be old enough to be able to legally drive. And drink.

“If you don’t want to have another child, then you should get a pet. I see you will write a book someday.”

I’ve written and published several articles and young adult and children’s books. But I see these are as visible to you as my health conditions.

“You were murdered in a previous life. You were drowned. Are you afraid of water?” Wanda asked.

“No,” I said.

“You struggled emotionally when growing up,” she continued. “And you experienced negative things. I would strongly recommend you do past life regression and resolve what happened as I believe there is a carry over into your current life. Do you typically awaken at 2 or 3 a.m.?”

If I didn’t before, you can be sure I will now. Screaming.

“I see you have a lot of protectors,” Wanda said.

I’m assuming I did not have many protectors in my previous life.

“I see you have a lot of associates, but no real friends.”

“But I do have friends,” I protested.

“No,” Wanda insisted, “I see no real friends. I see people judging you. You need to be careful.”

“But seriously,” I said, “I have some very close friends. Friends who are like family. And even friends of mine who I don’t see or speak with too often are people I still consider good friends. I’m not sure where you’re getting this from.”

“Okay. I see maybe two friends. But that’s it. Other than that, be careful. I am strongly picking up an older woman who is watching over you. Do you have an aunt or other relative whose first name or middle name starts with “R”? The name sounds like a flower. Do you know a Rose?”

I was stumped. “My grandmothers’ names were Celia and Mae,” I said. I later learned from my mother that my grandma Mae’s middle name was Rebecca and that it was a name my grandmother always hated, and this was why I never knew about it. I supposed “R” in “Rebecca” was what Wanda could have been seeing. Wasn’t the flecca the state flower for Wyoming?

“May, as in April showers bring May flowers,” Wanda said, chuckling softly at her own wit. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“Can you tell me anything about my father?” I asked.

“I’m not picking up anything for an older man. But... something doesn’t feel right. I see a younger man who died a tragic death. Do you know anyone with the initial “J” in his name?”

I did know someone named “John” who died at the age of 33 from a heart condition. He had inspired the writing of my first published book that, according to Wanda. I hadn’t yet written.

“He’s in a better place. And he’s watching over you.”

“But you don’t see my father?” I asked.

“No. He’s not revealing himself,” Wanda said. “You have some psychic abilities, by the way. You do this with your dreams. I see great news with finances. And 2023 is going to be your year.”

And that feeble and transparent attempt to end on a high note concluded my $65 psychic gaslighting experience. I decided to take the cheap way out and directly and neurotically assail some of the friends I still believed I had instead of investing in more psychic insight to try to learn why I had no friends.

I received replies including the following from one person: “Jesus, Ellen. Sounds like a crackpot. I AM YOUR FRIEND. So, she’s dead wrong.” And I also received from another person: “YOU ARE MY FAVORITE PERSON AND MY TRUE BFF. That ‘psychic’ can go BLEEP!! herself.” And I also received from another person: “BLEEP!! I’m your real friend.” Given that I got reassurance from no less than three people and the psychic insisted I had — at most — two friends, it was time again for the Family Feud buzzer sound.

So, it’s possible that spirits communicate through things like leaves and rocks and cloud formations and sunlight. In a similar vein, spirits might also communicate through living things, like people. But people have something that the leaves and rocks and cloud formations and sunlight do not have.

Free will.

And therein lies the rub.

Attempting to use a human being to reach beyond the here and the now, and that which most of us comparatively obtuse creatures are unable to see, touch, smell, hear or taste, means risking possible fallout from the free will of said human being regardless of how amazingly open their pineal gland might be relative to that of others.

That said, I still believe, to a large extent because I want to believe, but also because I’ve had a good amount of time to reflect on what this bizarre thing called life is about. I think how the seemingly endless stream of personal and global struggles and victories and tragedies and miracles alternate and intertwine. With so much hard core, continuous stirring of energy, it’s hard to believe there’s ever a time when anything so impactful could ever just turn mute.

And one questionable experience with one questionable psychic will not deter me from continuing to believe. Although I would like to know who drowned me in a previous life and if they are here in my current life.

They owe me quite the apology.

Copyright © 2023 by Ellen Weisberg