The pungent smell of incense is the first hint that this apartment on Brattle St. is not your ordinary home. Pinned up against the wall are flyers advertising Psychic Healing, Crystal Therapy, and classes ranging from meditation to massage. Several kitchen chairs and tables on which are spread colorful crystals and velvet bags of runes comprise the only pieces of furniture in the room. One table by the window has a plate of cookies and a selection of herbal teas on it.

Every weekend people leave behind the mundane world of the Square and visit this apartment to have readings done, buy books and some just to satisfy their curiosity.

If you're one of those willing, you're not alone. More and more Americans are beginning to lend credibility to what they once would have considered the far-out world of psychic wonders, according to several of the psychic readers who frequent the fair, which is sponsored by the Healers' Resource Center. Consequently, activities like the psychic fair are growing in number across the nation.

"Thanks to Shirley McLaine, things have picked up--we've jumped off the Gypsy wagon train and into the limelight," says Gloria McPherson, a psychic reader who works part-time for the Healers' Resource Center.

Acording to Chaya Sarah Sadeh, who founded the non-profit Healers' Resource Center, about 200 people drop by the fair on an average weekend. Some of those come just to look around, but about a quarter actually have readings done, she says.

Readings are $12 for a 15 to 20 minute session. The readers work out of a small room in the apartment, where packs of Tarot cards, colorful crystals, and an occasional bag of runes can be seen on set out on small tables. But the readers say that these objects are mere tools, and that the actual reading of a person is done through psychic abilities.

"A psychic can pick up a person's vibes and tell where they're coming from, as well as where they have been--their past lives. The psychic can then predict certain things in the future based on patterns in that person's life," says reader Steve Brown.

Brown says he concentrates "on a person's life experiences. We don't try to deal with all of the mental garbage you have floating around in your head. We deal with intuitive experiences--where people are coming from."

In a typical session McPherson says she focuses on the person she is reading and lets her subconscious pick up information about that person. "I use my intuition, my psychic abilities when I'm reading. It's not a thought process, it's all intuitive." Using runes, crystals or cards, she says, only "provides a focal point."

Looking For Balance

The readers all have their psychic specialties: some prefer using tools, some use nothing other than their mind; some profess to be able to tell you about the future or about past lives, while others prefer to deal only with the present. They all share the goal of offering guidance.

"After figuring out what is going on for a person, and what might be expected to go on in their life, we offer clarity and perspective on directions that the person could move in," says Linda, a reader who asked that her last name not be used. "Psychic readings are a tool for the inspection of the self," Linda says. "We are like mirrors, we often just confirm what a person already knows about themself."

Joyce Lynch, a New Hampshire resident who was visiting the fair a few weeks ago, says she came because she had received a notice in the mail and felt it was a message to her that "it was time to do this again, time to concentrate on my spirit." Lynch says that the readings help her gain perspective on her life, and often give her good advice. In a reading she says, "You need to be open to what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear."

"Everyone needs to have a balance in life between the physical, emotional and spiritual. If you have an effective balance, you will be at most peace with yourself and the world," adds Lynch, who says that life is a search for that balance.

But, she says, she doesn't limit her search to readings and psychic fairs. She applies her philosophy of seeking balance and inner peace through mental-imagery in her career as a successful business executive. She says she even teaches her office staff the powers of positive thinking. "You can choose to be positive. Once you decide what you want to happen, and visualize that in a positive way, it can become reality," Lynch says.

'Skeptics? I Love Them'

While many people today might look askance at the power of psychic ability, these readers swear by their ability to convince doubters that there is truth to these concepts.

"Skeptics? I love them," Brown says. "They say `Prove it and I'll believe it,' so them I show them, and they become a believer through experience."

Brown, who had a science-engineering education, says he was once a skeptic but adds, "I reached a point where I couldn't deny it" after he had seen several friends demonstrate their psychic powers.

One woman who had a reading done on a recent weekend says she thinks societal skepticism stems from fear. "It seems like people are afraid of feelings in general, and any system based on an emotional state, like counseling or this, evokes fear. Anything that's powerful is scary," she says.

Lynch denounces societal skepticism, saying that these powers of visualization are not weird, but are powers everyone possesses, though few recognize them. "People equate the word `psychic' with the occult or witchcraft when it's simply that energy that we create on a daily basis. We all do psychic things, we just don't call it that," she says.

Brown says he thinks people's attitudes are influenced by what they are taught to accept as normal. "Because of your upbringing or programming, if you're brought up to be a Christian, you'll believe in that, but you'll `pooh-pooh' anything labeled as psychic," he says.

"I'm tossing around the possibility of the existence of some other force, some life energy," says Judy F. Abrams '90, who came to the fair because it was "something different to investigate."

Loreen D. Costa '90, who accompanied Abrams to the fair, says, "I don't know if the energy is something outside of us, or within us, but I'm trying harder to understand it."

The readers try to help people overcome their skepticism, and most teach psychic awareness courses out of their homes or in local community centers. Brown and McPherson recently began doing "psychic entertainment" where Brown says they hire themselves out to businesses or private parties to "entertain and educate" guests by "explaining' concept of psychic awareness, and then proceeding to do it."

Healers

Many of the psychics also claim to use psychic powers to physically heal people. "There is a strong connection between readings and healing," says Sadeh, who is a registered nurse and used to work in a mental hospital. She says she attended a workshop on the healing powers of the mind in 1980, and has been a believer ever since.

In fact, every Sunday night the Healers' Resource Center runs a drop-in "healing circle" where members practice massage, and other forms of touch and mental healing on each other.

"When each of us heal ourselves, we help to heal the earth because we effect everything around us. The earth is in need of healing," Sadeh says.

Brown explained the principle of touch-healing, where the hands are run over, but do not touch, a body to smooth the person's energy out. "The body is a movement of energy; a healer is someone who can sense where the movement of energy is blocked, and go to the source of the problem and cure it, rather than just treating the symptom," Brown says. "All health is really psychosomatic. A change in your attitude can make your problems go away." He says he has cured people of arthritis, and cites examples of people who have used mental energy to cure themselves of cancer.

Though Brown deals mostly within the realm of the mind and its effect on the body, he has lately been experimenting with the effects of mental powers on physical objects. He has found that he can magnetize rocks by focussing his mental energies on a certain frequency, and then transmitting this energy to the rocks.