O.C. psychic likes the coming attractions

This is the busy season in the psychic trade, but Mrs. Stevens squeezed me in Friday noon between a middle-aged couple wondering about their business and a young couple wondering about their futures.

“It’s the end of the year,” she says, cheerfully. “People want to know how life is going to be, what 2007 is carrying.”

I couldn’t care less about my future, but I do care about the O.C., so that’s what I asked about at Mrs. Stevens’ home-based business on Katella Avenue in Anaheim.

Rest easy, she’s extremely high on the county, just as she’s been since 1984 when her family moved here because she didn’t like the vibes from Los Angeles or Monterey, the family’s other options.

“The finances for Orange County have been down,” she says. “I don’t know if you know that or not, but it has been picking up a little bit. It’s going to take two years to get back to a good foundation.”

But don’t take that to mean she’s worried. She loves the place. “That’s the reason we moved here,” she says. “The vibration of bringing up my children was definitely Orange County. The vibration of making money was in Los Angeles, but the vibration of being happy and having a peaceful life was being here.”

Saying it’s much easier to read a person than a county, still she offers some thoughts.

“I feel there’s going to be more -- how do I want to say it -- some other attraction that’s going to bring people to the Orange County area,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s a football team, but something to do with sports. It’s going to draw people, but it has something to do with sports that’s going to be big.”

Possibly involving the Angels, I ask, envisioning a World Series? “I don’t think it’s the Angels,” she says.

Most of the time, she says, Orange County has yielded positive energy. And it’s not just the weather, she says smiling, noting that other places have nice weather too.

There’s just something afoot, she thinks.

“I feel something very big is coming, but it’s a positive energy that’s going to bring our county more money and it’s not just the sport thing. There’s something else. It seems to be a very large project, but it seems to be involving the government.”

Mrs. Stevens, whose first name is Marie, says she discovered her psychic power when she was 6. Now 57, she considers it a gift from God and that her mission is to interpret what He tells her so she can help people. Of Yugoslavian descent, she says her mother and grandmother also had the gift, as does one of her three children.

Despite the overall rosy outlook for the O.C., she’s had some qualms about Costa Mesa and Laguna Niguel. “It seems like Costa Mesa is not doing their job the way they should,” she says.

“I take that back. They’re doing their job but closing their eyes to things, on purpose.”

I mention they’ve had a controversy over illegal immigration, but she says she doesn’t have a specific concern.

As for Laguna Niguel, she says, “It seems to be not growing or developing as fast as it should.” It’s doing well, she says, but could be doing better in certain parts of the city.

She also thinks Anaheim is going to see changes on the council that is going to “bring a brightness to the city.” I mention that one new council member has been elected, but Mrs. Stevens says it’s more than that. “Something is going to take people out and bring new people in.”

Her view of the country, in general, is changing from downbeat to promising. “Since 2000 started, it’s been like a dark cloud,” she says, “but in the last 2 1/2 years, more so. It’s just the vibration, the energy that is making people feel depressed, making people feel that everything is going slow for them. It’s like nothing is materializing for them. But I do feel that 2007 is going to be a very positive time. And 2008 is going to be a time of more inner peace and success.”

I ask what it would take to get her to leave Orange County. “I want to die here,” she says. “The only thing that will turn me away is when they take me out in a coffin.”

So, places have auras? “Of course. There’s a building at Euclid and Cerritos that has such a negative vibration. It’s such a negative building, it’s unbelievable. My husband wanted to rent it, and I said, ‘Don’t you do it.’ ”

She hopes people will “count their blessings” more in 2007 and not be afraid to take chances on long-held plans or dreams. “For the last three years,” she says, “everybody has been afraid to do anything.”

Not wanting to take more of her time, I thank her for our 20 minutes and get up to leave. Without me asking, she tells me I dwell way too much on the past and over-analyze things. “It’s making you depressed,” she says. “Be thankful where you’re at. Look at other people’s lives and look how wonderful yours is.”

That jangles my nerves a bit as I step into the noonday sun and, if nothing else, leaves me with one particular guilty feeling: I should have paid her for that.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana

.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.