Psychics stir up conversation, provide perspective

The Psychic Faire was held in Lincoln this Saturday and Sunday at Here and Back Again, a spiritual store just off of 13th street. Walking in, there was a noticeable lack of beaded doorways, eerie chimes or bandana-wearing, beauty mark-sporting, thick make-upped ladies. But that's what you should expect walking into a psychic fair, right? Nope.

Guests were greeted with a smile, a friendly hello and a distinctive waft of incense. Children got their faces painted while older people opted for Henna tattoos. Among those on staff at the fair included psychics, mediums and aura photographers. Scattered throughout the store were tables where fair goers could get a Tarot card reading, crystal ball reading, or for $20, a metaphysical reading.

Co-owners Darla Darrell and Joshua Jacobsen talked a little about the event and their store.
"We opened two years ago on August 1," Darrell said.
"We got the name of the store from the alternate title of [the book] ‘The Hobbit,' but also because we wanted people to come here and then come back again," she said with a laugh.

Along with selling a variety of nationally and locally made spiritual items, Here and Back Again offers classes to learn how to read Tarot cards and also on healing modalities. They offer spiritual life coaching, Reiki Therapy and Ro-Hun Transformational Therapy. The occult store is also the monthly meeting sight for the Nebraska Paranormal Society and the Circle of Mystics.

"There's a growing interest (for a store like this in Lincoln)." Darrell said. "We focus a lot on local and community - we have local artists, authors and musicians come in. We want to feel part of the community."

"We like to have a lot of different stuff available," Jacobsen said. "We try and get a lot of local crafts in here, but obviously there are also some things nationally we try to get. We want to be an information-based place for people; we're open to having everyone come in here, like (people of) agnostic, Wiccan, pagan (beliefs)."
Besides the fact they sat with an indicative sign at cloth-covered tables, the psychics were indiscernible from the event goers. No flowing gowns with eccentric colors, no arms outstretched with eyes in the back of their heads and no dangly jangly bracelets or hoop earrings. These psychics weren't there to say things like "something ghastly this way comes," or the ever-popular "you will die soon." They are not fortune cookies. Fortune cookies are free. They were there to offer comfort to people who were facing a crisis and who were looking for answers. If cookies can solve all your problems (they can), then so be it. Others prefer to talk with someone who, if anything else, has decades of experience talking with people about their problems.

Of course, there are those who are skeptical. They think fortune-tellers and psychics ring-lead some of the greatest scams of all time. In a sense, they make a good point. "Your dog is barking at the sausage link on top of the mantel, not the ghost of your dead grandmother…that'll be twenty bucks." Looking subjectively at the issue, if everyone saw that people who seek out psychics only want a satisfaction of mental self, they may understand that in some sense, psychics can help them achieve that.

"We encourage people to be open-minded; we leave it up to them and respect their beliefs," Darrell said.

Local bard/storyteller, historian and headliner of the event, Dale Bacon, gave his two cents on skeptics.

"They have valid points," Bacon said. "There's a lot of stuff we don't know. We can't see the air, but I'm pretty sure it's there! Sometimes people need a physicist, not a paranormal investigator. Everyone has their own understanding. If you grew up believing in a certain religion, you're gonna believe in that. But I like skeptics. They keep me on my toes."

Known around town for his Ghost of Lincoln bus tours right before Halloween, Bacon just released his second edition of "Ghosts of Lincoln" on DVD. While the first documentary focused solely on the paranormal in Lincoln, the second one talks about supernatural events all over the state, including the columns of fire that appear in Seward, strange events that took place in the North Platte Canteen and the Belmont area, as well as (Twilight fans get ready) a vampire attack in the state. For the sake of non-Twilight fans, let's hope the vampire turns out to be an overweight mosquito.

At the fair, Bacon talked a little about his first paranormal encounter in his small hometown in Iowa. In December of 1973, Bacon and his friends went to an old farm house owned by one of his friend's family. The group was sitting in the living room when Bacon saw something out of the corner of his eye.

"It was a woman. She was standing in the kitchen, full profile. I just sat there staring at her. I said to my friends, ‘There's a woman standing in the kitchen,' and instead of going to see for themselves, they asked, ‘What's she look like?' So I described her to them."

Bacon continued, "She stood there with her hands crossed in front, but they didn't look like hands, they looked like claws. I blinked, and she was gone. I had given an accurate description of my friend's grandmother. As she aged, she developed a crippling arthritis in her hands. Then (my friend) Chuck said, ‘Can you smell that?' And it smelled like chocolate chip cookies and (making cookies) was her big thing."

The Psychic Faire offered insight into a world that not many of us know about. Whether you feel Miss Cleo is a quack, or still believe wholeheartedly that Bruce Willis is a ghost, it is undeniable that the realms of the supernatural and paranormal are grossly fascinating. Bacon said each one of us has to decide for ourselves whether or not we believe in the supernatural. So the next time those lights mysteriously shut off, you'll have to call either Bacon or Lincoln Electric. Who you gonna call?
matthames@dailynebraskan.com