PSYCHED
UPFORTHE
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

*NEVVIA.GE*

Some local

Jews are

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

A

black cat
named Chosh-
ech (darkness)
followed the
Sky family
home one Yom Kippur and
stayed. Now, as cats will do,
he strolls around the Hunting-
ton Woods house like a king.

The inside of the house
bears a distinctly Art Deco
look and is painted a bright
blue-green, which is why
some neighbors refer to it
as an aquarium, says
owner Ina Sky.
But Sky doesn't mind.
She's had an intimate
knowledge of colors since
she was little, when she
saw them in auras around
people. One color shows an
angry person; another color
may reveal an illness.
"I didn't know as a child
that everybody didn't see
colors and feelings around
people," she says. "The
colors were so bright it was
almost blinding."
Today, Sky not only sees
color auras, she is a chan-
neler — voices from the
past speak through her.
She knows psychometry,
telling about the life of a
person by holding an object
that belongs to him. She
also is a practitioner of
Reiki, laying hands to heal.
Now she is learning to read
Tarot cards with her
daughter, Amy.
Sky is one of a number of
Jews in the Detroit area
who believe in the afterlife,
numerology, Tarot cards,
astrology, gurus or crystals
— the supernatural, the
New Age.
Though almost always
forbidden by Halachah
(Jewish law), the super-
natural and fortune telling
are mentioned throughout

26

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1990

the Bible and have been
practiced by Jews
throughout the ages. New
Age advocates today con-
sider themselves spiritual
persons, and often believe
their talents are God-
given.
"I'm grateful for the abil-
ity to do readings," says
Sky, who gives all money
she earns from psychic
readings to charity. "It
comes from honesty. I
would never make some-
thing up; that would be
like treason to God."
She often does her work
at the Michigan
Metaphysical Society in
Berkley, which hosts
regular psychic reading
nights for those looking for
something a little different
from an evening of bowling
or "America's Most Want-
ed."
Working as a channeler,
Sky enters into what she
describes as a "meditative
state." She may then be
contacted by any number of
"souls of energy" from the
past who usually espouse a
message of love and kind-
ness.
Souls who have come to
Sky during her channeling
sessions include a child
who wanted to sing a
hymn, a comedian who
laughed and uttered, "If
you think I'm going to
come back you're crazy"
and an old Indian medicine
woman.
The latter had in life suf-
fered with a deformity: her
tongue was attached to the
side of her upper palate,
making speech difficult.
When the spirit of the In-
dian woman visited Sky,
the channeler also found it
hard to speak, she says.
"If we believe we are
God-like souls then we can
never die," Sky says. "The
energy is in us."

using

astrology,

gurus and

channeling to

find their way

through the

New Age.

3

Sky has a devoted fan in
her daughter, Amy, who
says her mother has an un-
canny sense for sizing up
people in a matter of
moments.
"My mother can see right
through things," Amy
says. "I have friends over
and she knows about them
right away.
"A lot of people have
what I call 'brain blocks'—
they see or think only what
they want. My mom
doesn't have that."
Ina Sky sits before a 1930
green crystal ball that
rests on a metal holder
covered with elephants.
Wearing a necklace of deli-
cate toys, charms, crystals
and Jewish symbols, she
could not be a greater con-
trast to her daughter, who
smokes Marlboros and re-
cently returned with her
dog from a cross-country
journey in her van.
But mother and daughter
share a love of Harleys and
Tarot and looking at the

world in a less than con-
ventional way.
Sky believes others were
born with a sixth sense, but
that many have suppressed
it because society frowns
on anything regarded
paranormal.
Sky was able to develop
her intuitions because her
parents encouraged her to
explore the world, to ask
about everything; she lov-
ed Sunday school because
she could ask all her ques-
tions.
Retaining one's sixth
sense is worth the risk, Sky
says. "If you hold on to
some of that, it makes life
much more interesting."

N

ew Age may be the
popular term, but its
practitioners disdain

it.
"It's anything but new,"
says numerologist Elaine
Lewis.
Jerry Stein, a member of
the Theosophical Society,
agrees. "Don't call it New
Age," he says. "Call it
`esoteric wisdom.' "
And in fact, the super-
natural has deep — if not
always positive — roots in
Judaism. Fortune telling is
mentioned throughout the
Torah, and many Jews
have made names for
themselves in astrology
and fortune telling.
One of the most famous
names in the world of the
other world is that of
Michael Nostradamus, a
French physician born in
1503.
Nostradamus, both of
whose grandfathers were
Jewish, was said to have
made his predictions
through a combination of
astrology and staring into
a brass bowl filled with
water.
Nostradamus' pro-
phecies, written in poetic

verse, are said to accu-
rately predict the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution; the
life and death of Italian
Dictator Benito Mussolini;
Ayatollah Khomeini's
Islamic revolution and his
death in the late 1980s; the
Lindbergh baby kidnapp-
ing; the rise to power of a
German dictator named
Ilister'; the creation of the
State of Israel; the removal
of the Berlin Wall, which
would be followed by brutal
consequences; the deaths of
John and Robert Kennedy;
and this verse:

Six days shall the assault
be in front of the city.
A great and fierce battle
shall be fought,
Three shall surrender it,
and be pardoned,
The Rest shall be put to
fire and sword, cut and
slashed.
Nostradamus translator and
interpreter Henry Roberts
says this passage describes
the 1967 Six-Day War, in
which Israel conquered
three — Syria, Jordan and
Egypt, whose prisoners of
war were freed and "pardon-
ed."
Some modern clairvoyants
use in their practice Jewish
symbols, such as writing
Hebrew names for God on
candles and pedestals sur-
rounding their crystal balls.
Hebrew letters and Stars of
David also often appear on
psychics' ritual objects; a
grimoire, which magicians

use to call up spirits, con-
tains names derived from
Jewish mysticism.
Tarot decks show Jewish
symbols, including a high
priestess holding a Sefer
Torah.
The Tarot, one of the most
popular fortune-telling tools,
comprises 52 cards, each of
which carries its own mean-
ing. Author and Tarot spe-
cialist Rachel Pollack says
that most occultists connect
Tarot to the Kabbalah, the