Auras for All : 350 Gather in Anaheim for County’s Largest Annual Psychic Fair

The date for Psynetics Foundation’s annual spring psychic fair was chosen as carefully as the runes, or stones, that some fair-goers pulled from velvet bags as they searched for clues to their future.

On Saturday, the sun was in Gemini, which rules communication, and the moon was in a sign compatible with the sun. The combination makes “psychics more open and receptive, communication-wise,” said Frank Sekeris, a numerologist and member of the foundation.

“A surfer goes to the ocean when the waves are high,” Sekeris added. “These are our good waves.”

About 350 people gathered Saturday at what organizers called the county’s largest annual psychic fair. Proceeds will benefit a local school for developmentally disabled adults.

“My past has been so bad--I’m hoping my future will be better,” said Lynne Evans, 24, of Anaheim, as she peered at a list of about 50 psychics, trying to decide which to consult.

Nearby, clairvoyants, palm readers, astrologers, numerologists, Tarot card readers and rune readers consulted with fair-goers, some of whom came from as far away as Santa Barbara. One woman read rice, in the tradition of tea leaves, and another took photographs of the swirling colors that formed fair-goers’ auras. Prices for readings ranged from $5 to $25.

All psychics who read at the fair are tested beforehand, Sekeris said, and warned not to include in their readings the four Ds: death, destruction, disease and disaster.

“The main goal is we’re positive-oriented,” Sekeris said. “We tell psychics to share information in a positive manner. . . . We are not fortunetelling. We do get impressions, but they can change. Your thoughts can change them.”

Some of those who attended the festival had little experience with professional psychics. Evans said she met a man in a London park once who uncannily revealed details of her life, but Saturday was the first time she had paid for that.

But for others, a psychic reading was old hat.

Sandra Fiorenza, 28, of Long Beach, said she has been to psychic fairs before and is one of the 6,500 people on the Psynetics Foundation mailing list. On Saturday, Fiorenza had three psychic readings done: a past-life regression, a rune reading and a session with a clairvoyant.

“Two were very accurate,” she said. “I’m planning a trip to Europe in September, and one asked me if I was planning a trip in September. And she asked me if it was a reunion, and I will be seeing my husband’s family in Italy. . . . Also, she asked if I was moving soon, and I am planning to buy a house.”

Fiorenza said one psychic told her that she was a witch in a previous life, something she has heard from another psychic before.

“It’s just an interesting thing,” Fiorenza said. “I don’t take it too seriously. I just take it with a grain of salt.”

The Psynetics Foundation, housed in a former church on Lincoln Avenue, was started 26 years ago by Walter Tipton, a Methodist minister who had many unanswered questions about the universe, Sekeris said.

The foundation, an education and research center, offers classes and seminars, counseling, workshops and social activities. It also rents space to two metaphysical churches and runs the Apollo program, a school for developmentally disabled adults, to which the psychic fair’s proceeds go.

“We consider this to be serious entertainment and another way for people to find out about themselves,” said Rick Kravetz, general executive director of the foundation.

It was Kravetz’s wife, Gail Kuhns, who picked the date for Saturday’s event. Kuhns, who first became interested in astrology as an 11-year-old and began reading the palms of her mother’s friends at 16, settled on June 2 after discovering the psychic advantages of the planetary positions.

On Saturday, she gave readings to a string of clients who sat in a large, orange, hand-shaped chair during their 15-minute sessions.

Although psychic readings dominated the festivities, other activities abounded as well.

Adrian Klein, 8, came with her grandmother, an aunt and uncle and a friend. While they were deciding which psychics to consult, Adrian contented herself with playing on a shady patch of grass and proudly showed the two stones she had bought.

“I’ve been looking at all kinds of rocks,” she said. “They’re pretty.”

And rocks or crystals were not the only things for sale. Along with pizza and sodas, vendors peddled Natural Drive, a thick concoction tasting of honey and licorice, which is guaranteed to promote better health; New Age jewelry; runes; vegetarian cookbooks, and Arom Vital, a liquid designed to promote spiritual and cellular regeneration.

Linda Lacy, 48, of Claremont sold copies of her recently published book, “Astrology for Dogs,” a manual to help dog owners understand their pets.

“There’s truth in everything,” Kravetz said, explaining that the Psynetics Foundation does not promote any particular dogma. “Our quest is to keep looking for novel and entertaining ways to embrace truth in its various forms and expressions.”