Psychic

When a stranger called and offered her talents to help the Montgomery County canine unit find their police dog, the cops were skeptical.But they were also missing one 2-year-old Hungarian shepherd named Vader, who had given chase to a rabbit on Saturday and just kept on going.After three days' search and a helicopter equipped with an infrared heat-seeking device failed to turn up the $2,500 dog, Officer Lee Marsh and Officer Timothy Carroll of the canine unit were willing to try anything.

When I called Nancy L. Fox and got her answering machine the other day, I considered not leaving my number or the reason I wanted to talk to her. She's psychic, after all. Fox is the psychic who tried to help police find Christine Ann Jarrett after the Elkridge woman disappeared in January 1991. At the time, according to news accounts, she said she "saw" the missing woman get into a light blue car, and that there may be some clues to her disappearance in southern Pennsylvania.

You might call Ian Bliss the renegade psychic.He curses, chain smokes, listens to heavy metal music and arrives for an interview in a black T-shirt, red plaid shorts and white socks.That's not all. Just listen to him slam his fellow metaphysicians."Most of them are deadbeats," says the 45-year-old San Antonio spiritualist. "Communes aren't in anymore and they're lost. . . .Then there are these Madame Dorothy types."For the past 10 years, he's organized psychic fairs around the country; his first in Baltimore -- featuring some 20 readers and crystal vendors -- takes place this weekend.

With this week's Mega Millions pot holding a record-breaking $500 million prize, one could head to the closest quickie mart and leave the numbers up to the lottery machine gods.  Or.... one could attempt a bit of strategy. And who better to predict such a thing than one of the Baltimore area's card-carrying psychics? We got on the phone this morning to see if any of them were getting a divine line on Friday's drawing. First we called Savetta Stevens, a psychic with a shop in Mount Washington.

MOSCOW -- Rumors about an impending coup have been crackling across the country like an electrical storm, causing such intense static that yesterday a famous psychic felt compelled to send out some special brain waves.Vladimir Trufanov, psychic and healer, had no easy task. The center of the rumors, President Boris N. Yeltsin, was vacationing on the Black Sea, separated from the psychic by 1,100 miles and a very negative force field.Mr. Trufanov thought hard and soon reported that he had "remotely checked the body of Boris Nikolayevich and found out that there are no grounds for concern."

Dissatisfied with her life and her investments, Nancy Cantrell consulted an Annapolis psychic in 1992.But instead of being "put in touch with her soul," Mrs. Cantrell told an Anne Arundel Circuit judge yesterday, she was persuaded to hand over $236,000 to an investment counselor who turned out to be a con artist and stole every penny.The Severna Park woman told Judge Eugene M. Lerner, who could decide the case today, that she came to trust Kathy Oddenino, the psychic or "channeler," she consulted March 3, 1992, after a referral from a New Age bookstore in Severna Park and two telephone interviews.

Buy a chipped antique in historic Ellicott City and return it if not satisfied. No problem. But visit a psychic adviser who offers to cleanse your spirit, and the return policy is a little more problematic.Alese Burton says she found this out last month. She alleges she was swindled out of $1,310 by a psychic adviser operating at the U.S. 40 branch of Sally Ely's small psychic empire, which includes a shop on Ellicott City's historic Main Street and one on Frederick Road in Catonsville.Burton, who lives in western Howard County, was so outraged by the psychic's advice that she filed a complaint against the shop with the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs last month.

Buy a chipped antique in historic Ellicott City and return it if not satisfied. No problem. But visit a psychic adviser who offers to cleanse your spirit, and the return policy is a little more problematic.Alese Burton says she found this out last month. She alleges she was swindled out of $1,310 by a psychic adviser operating at the U.S. 40 branch of Sally Ely's small psychic empire, which includes shop on Ellicott City's historic main street and one on Frederick Road in Catonsville.Burton, who lives in western Howard, was so outraged by the psychic's advice that she filed a complaint against the shop with the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs last month.

County police and an Elkridge neighborhood have turned to a psychic in an effort to locate a woman who mysteriously dropped out of sight 10 weeks ago.Missing is Christine Ann Jarrett, 34, a housewife who walked out of her home Jan. 3 after kissing her two young sons goodnight. Police say Jarrett hasn't been heard from since, and it is unknown whether she simply left the area or met with foul play.On the night she was last seen, she left with a large sum of money amid brewing domestic trouble at her home.

Venice, Calif. -- Dennis Reid, an astrologer along this beachfront strip of tarot card readers, spray-paint artists and street comedians, inserts a disc into his laptop computer, pulls up the chart of O. J. Simpson and scrolls to June 12, the day his former wife was murdered."

Mr. Poe, the microphone is yours. A group of selected mediums and psychics will be spending a March weekend trying to reach Edgar Allan Poe, the literary giant and creator of the modern detective story who has made Baltimore his permanent home since 1849. Officials and friends of Baltimore's Poe House and Museum are organizing what is billed as "Beyond Nevermore. " For two days, on March 3 and 4, psychics will gather at Westminster Hall, a former church just yards from Poe's grave, and try to contact the spirit of the dead author.

I don't have a problem with anything on the census form and I will be returning it at some point after April 1. Yet do I marvel that we are getting urgent pleas to immediately fill out a form that asks for information as of April 1. Are we all supposed to predict the future? People are born and die and move every day, including from now until April 1. I could make a pretty good guess what the answers are going to be on April 1 and hope nothing changes, but I think I'll wait. Bernard Hayes, Baltimore

Tell me if this sounds familiar: It's a Friday night, and you're walking back from the bars. Suddenly, you see the sign: Palm Readings, $5. You're curious, but a little hesitant. Who knows what you're getting into, right? Maybe next time, you tell yourself. Well, last weekend, I stopped putting my future on hold. I went to not one, but two psychics in two different neighborhoods on the same night. I always like a second opinion, after all.

In a corner of the restaurant, past the customers picking over plates of potato skins and crab balls, Miss Betty is predicting the future. Her wrinkled fingers flash over the green-and-white checked tablecloth as she lays out a row of cards. Queen of clubs. Six of diamonds. Seven of hearts. She licks her lips and peers through thick bifocals at an anxious hairdresser sitting across from her. "Why do you want this man back?" she asks in a throaty whisper, then lays down a king of clubs.

It's not as if I haven't done my homework over the years. I read Betting Thoroughbreds, which is one of the bibles of horse handicapping, and I've put in my hours at the rail trying to make sense of the Daily Racing Form, and pretty much all it got me was a little lighter in the wallet. My ability to pick winners at the track ranks right up there with the keen insight I showed this spring predicting the future of Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera, so it would be unfair to the casual horse player for me to make betting recommendations about today's Preakness at Pimlico Race Course.

The lineup for this year's Columbia Festival of the Arts includes Afro-Caribbean dance, gospel and blues, flying gymnasts, psychic predictions and Judy Collins. Clearly, executive director Nichole Hickey is serious when she says her staff was looking for a wide range of artistic experiences for the 2008 season, which will run June 13 through June 28. "I think we really put the focus on diversity in terms of genre as well as culture," Hickey said, "plus a couple of big names we always try to throw in the mix."

There must be something of the gypsy in 2-year-old Vader, that Hungarian shepherd who fled the Montgomery County canine unit last weekend in pursuit of a rabbit. How else do you explain Vader's rescue after 60 hours of fruitless police searches by a psychic?Looking into her crystal ball, or more accurately trying to make contact with the pooch's aura by touching Vader's possessions and sitting in the police car where the dog rode, the psychic led desperate police officers back to a park in Burtonsville where Vader had last been seen.

A lonely Navy wife who apparently became addicted to 900-number phone lines for psychics and horoscopes pleaded guilty yesterday to a theft charge for running up thousands of dollars in unpaid bills."

Because a Fire Was in My Head By Lynn Stegner University of Nebraska Press / 273 pages / $24.95 Lynn Stegner, who was twice nominated for the National Book Award, looks to Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Scarlet O'Hara for her portrayal of the manipulative, unscrupulous, but needy temptress, Kate Riley, heroine of the novel Because a Fire Was in My Head. Like her literary predecessors, Kate cannot function without a man in her life, and for the life of her, she cannot choose the right man. Either the men don't share Kate's sexual proclivities and therefore cannot keep her interest, or they're too much like Kate and can beat her at her own game.

Sure, my dog talks. He puts his nose on the doorknob when he needs to go out. He moans impatiently (but just once) when he thinks his daily trip to the park is being unnecessarily delayed. His head on the bed means "Can I come up?" And his tail in full curlicue says he's happy; when it droops, he's not. Or so I think. Beyond those signals - beyond my whistles and clucks, his nuzzles and licks, and all the other unspoken signals that form our silent bond - I didn't suspect that Ace, who rarely barks, would be much of a talker.