Stars provide advice, amusement for students curious about future

The future is on the minds of many University students - an entire office, the Office of Academic Advising, is one of many sites funded to help students design their futures. Other students, however, prefer to consult Dionne Warwick and her friends at the Psychic Friends Network to learn about the future.

Is this approach - slapping down cash to let the stars, psychics and palm readers do the work - a good one or a scam?

One firm believer said it took just one accurate reading from a psychic to encourage her to return on a regular basis.

FILE PHOTO Jewel Sheldon gives a tarot card reading at Main Street News' "Psychic Night."

"In the past eight months I've been to three psychics," said LSA senior Laura Pylat. "The first was able to exactly describe my personality, that of my boyfriend, and those of my parents. He told me without my asking that I was having serious problems with the boyfriend, and could explain exactly why," she said.

Pylat also said all three readings were consistent. All three psychics predicted she would go into a teaching profession, she said.

"The day after I saw one of them, I got a job offer with a test-taking instruction company," Pylat said.

The accuracy didn't stop there. One of the psychics told her she would be experiencing psychic activities herself.

"The next day I played the Daily Four and won."

But other students think psychics cause self-fulfilling prophecies, and that hearers make the future happen on their own.

"I think it's all a bunch of bunk and hokum. Anyone who believes in it needs to learn to take control of their own life and not let silly cons and shams tell them what to do," said first-year LSA student John Vandenbrooks.

Michelle Goepp, a second-year LSA student, agreed.

"It amazes me that anyone could put faith in something like palm reading ... if used for anything other than a party game," she said. "All of that is a scam based on nothing that resembles logic or common sense."

Students like Brenna Polzin, a first-year LSA student, still are unsure about the logic - or lack thereof - behind astrology. Polzin once conducted a science project on the subject. She cut out her horoscope every day for two weeks, then recorded whether or not the expected came true.

"They didn't come true unless I read the horoscope ahead of time and made it come true," she said.

Another experimenter saw a psychic at a high school senior party and had a different reaction.

"At first I thought that it was a bunch of crap, but then she started telling me some things that were pretty much on the map, and I didn't give her anything," said Erin Tague, an LSA sophomore. "The most important thing is to know that you can be your own determinant of your future."

So how accurate are the stars? The only way to find out is by testing the powers of those who claim to know the future.

When callers pick up the phone for psychic advice, it can be both an entertaining and expensive venture. Calling one 800-number psychic line - Aaron's Live Psychic Readings - leads to trendy "X-Files" music and a woman with a low voice who speaks for a few minutes about what the future would hold:

"Let our gifted psychics help you to discover and enter what goes beyond your own mind," she says, encouraging callers to make another phone call.

"Clean the path to understanding and assist you to make best choices for your future," she states, directing callers to a 900-number that is free for the first minute and $3.99 per minute afterward.

The same woman answers the second number and promises that a psychic will be on shortly. The minutes that tick away while elevator music plays can add up - callers often pay more for waiting than listening to advice. A trip to a real psychic, for example, makes for a more personalized experience.

At Patsy's Psychic Readings in Ypsilanti, Patsy has successfully deduced specific past events, and her answers can be surprising, if not quite worth the $25 charge. But what is the secret of her accuracy?

"I was gifted to see these things through my mother and my grandmother and a long line of people in my family," Patsy said. "The stars play into it at certain times - like on the day that you were born, you have certain stars around your birth date."

So what affects the future most - stars, or students' free will? The University community seems divided on this issue.

But as Patsy said, "A lot of people don't believe in psychics until they actually go see one, and then they change their beliefs."

02-19-98