Arts & Entertainment GUIDING LIGHTS I ON THE COVER Psychic medium Rebecca Rosen's new book helps readers connect on their own to their spiritual guides. Gail Zimmerman Arts & Entertainment Editor I n April 2001, the Detroit Jewish News published a cover story on a 24-year-old psychic medium named Rebecca Perelman, a trans- plant from Omaha, Neb., who, working out of a coffee shop on Orchard Lake Road in West Bloomfield, delivered messages from ener- gies on "the other side hoping to "bring peace of mind, comfort, healing and direction" to clients who had lost their loved ones. After that article — and its client testimonials about her specific, spot-on messages, all delivered in a loving manner — "the phone rang off the hook:' "That story changed my life says Rosen, who married her husband of 8 1/2 years, Brian Rosen, just two months after the article appeared. "It was a launching pad that gave me the platform to come out and share my gift, demystifying the paranormal." On Monday, Feb. 1, Rosen returns to the Detroit area for the national launch of her first book, Spirited: Connect to the Guides All Around You, which will be released by HarperCollins ($24.99) on Feb. 2. On the day of its national release in bookstores, she'll appear at a Borders in Ann Arbor. In the book, co-written with Samantha Rose, Rosen shares her own personal journey — and experiences of some of her clients — to explain her work as a spiritual medium. The book is dedicated to her late grandmother Babe and to her father, the late Shelly Perelman, who took his own life in 2006. "It may sound strange to call my father's suicide a gift:' Rosen writes in her book,"but ifs indeed an inspiration to work on my own stuff and to continue my work as a medium, to help others." Another impetus for the book, Rosen explains, is that, in the last few years, more and more of her readings have moved beyond providing the comfort that comes with the realization that our "souls are eternal and our deceased loved ones are at peace and always with us." About 50 percent of her readings are with repeat clients "simply hun- gry for spiritual truth and a deeper understanding of why they feel lost and stuck in their lives." Rosen found that "in addition to offering closure around their deaths, spirits started coming through to help the living with their very down-to-Earth, daily problems:' like depression, financial woes, substance abuse, anger, relationship and body image issues, and low self-esteem. While Rosen loves her life as a psychic medium, she says her least favorite part is working with "clients who [repeatedly] can't make a decision without consulting me." It is unhealthy, she says, "to disconnect from your own intuitive guidance." Rosen says we don't need a psychic medium to connect us with the spirit guides who can help us resolve Earthly challenges that hold us back. Her book, she says, provides the exercises and meditations that Psychic medium Rebecca Rosen: "I am human like everyone else in that I lose my patience with my kids, get tked at the end of the day and need my breaks. Truly, the only di 'Spirited' on page 36 January 14 • 2010 35