Medium Predictions, Astrological Charts And Fate Versus Freewill
When A Psychic Medium Predicts Your Friend Is Going To Die

By Bob Olson

What would you do if a psychic medium told you that one of your best friends would die within three to four years? What if you trusted this psychic medium’s predictions to be accurate, and he or she told you this information by accident? That’s exactly what happened to me.

The following true story required that I change some names and minor details to protect the people related to this story. I appreciate your understanding in consideration of those involved.

In my first reading with Vicki, she was rattling off messages from my father, nailing the names, dates and personal details of my life like she had watched an HBO special about me the night before. She was relaying my father’s message that Melissa and I would be presented with the decision to adopt a child in about three or four years. She said we would already know the child because he belonged to someone close to us. This person, now a single parent, would have a car accident and cross-over to the other side (a nice way of saying she would die).

Vicki was careful not to give us the person’s name. She doesn’t like giving future information and was only going forward with this part of the reading because my father insisted, warning her that he would leave if she did not pass it on. Still, she gave me the option to go forward. I saw no harm in continuing since I didn’t know who my father was talking about.

This story rolled effortlessly for six or seven minutes. Abruptly, Vicki cocked her head as if confused; she thought my father was changing the subject. Vicki asked me, “Who’s Bradley?” Dead air space followed. I knew from Vicki’s expression that she got her answer from the spirit world. I didn’t need to hear the answer. Bradley was my cousin Jessica’s son. Jessica was a single mother. She was also a close friend of Melissa’s and mine.

Vicki could have earned a People’s Choice award for the acting job she attempted, trying to move forward as if the reading was past the adoption issue and into new territory. I didn’t buy it. Nevertheless, I didn’t pry. It was one of those moments where you find the denial is more comfortable than the reality. I just let it slither.

My mind never let go of that moment, that tragic news that my father insisted I learn a few years early. Despite my efforts to make the whole slip disappear, I eventually had to know the truth. For the same reason that most car passengers look to see the wreckage of an unsightly car accident, I needed to confront my cousin’s death.

Months later, Melissa and I had dinner with Vicki and her mother, Nancy. The question burst from my lips after Nancy went to the restroom. “What’s the truth about Jessica? Is she going to die in a car accident?” I asked. Melissa and Vicki dropped their forks. The lovey-dovey couple at the table beside us sensed the jolt and glanced over. “I have to know,” I said, ignoring the couple’s stares. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Vicki looked at Melissa to be sure she was prepared for the answer. Melissa gave Vicki a half-smile and slightly nodded. Vicki took a deep breath. “The spirits tell me that Jessica will remarry and is going to move to California because her new husband will get a job there. Her husband will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and spend months in the hospital. While driving to the hospital to visit him one day, Jessica will veer off the road and be killed.”

We stared at Vicki not knowing how to respond. “That’s a lot of detail in three seconds,” I said. Vicki admitted she knew this day would be coming. My father had prepared her. She already knew the answer to my question before it was asked.

I asked if there was something we could do to prevent the accident. Nothing. I asked if Jessica could change the outcome if she knew about the prediction. No. I asked why my father wanted me to know. My father would only tell Vicki this: it wasn’t for us to know why; it wasn’t for us to do anything; it was for us to learn. It was part of a process, a learning process. The outcome was the same whether we knew or not. The only thing that changed by us knowing was us.

Melissa and I drove home like we were driving home from a funeral. Our brain cells were sizzling with thoughts, but our mouths were silent. We knew there were no immediate answers to our questions. We knew there would be plenty of time for discussion later. I spun the radio’s volume up high to drown out our thoughts. Instead, our thoughts muted the music. Another disconcerting drive home from Maine.

Over the passing months, Melissa and I discussed the prediction of Jessica’s death. We discussed our responsibility to Jessica. I felt I would want to know if it were me who was going to die, that I might live my life differently. Melissa thought it was not our place to burden one’s life with a psychic’s prediction. She thought we could possibly cause the outcome by trying to prevent it. “The implications of such news is unfathomable,” Melissa said.

Over a couple glasses of wine or beer with friends, I often told the generic version of the story—no names or details—encouraging discussion to learn what others felt about our predicament. Most people agreed with Melissa. My stand was the minority. Regardless of how many people said, “No, I wouldn’t want to know, you shouldn’t tell the person,” it never eased my uncertainty.

As the calendar pages flipped, I grew to understand death more for what it is: a transition rather than an end. It is a “going home” as opposed to a “going away.” My research and investigation into life-after-death taught me that our earthly existence is the away; death is our return. With this insight came an acceptance for Jessica’s predicted accident, an acceptance that brought me peace. She had read the script and knew the ending before she agreed to act in the movie.

In the meantime, among Vicki’s other predictions that have since come true, Jessica got married, moved to California because of her husband’s job, and her husband’s father—not her husband—has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. If you want to yell, “Aha! She was wrong! It was the father who got prostate cancer, not the husband,” then I have much to teach you about mediums. It is common among mediums to be off on a detail like this. Spirit-to-medium communication is not perfect; there is static, misunderstandings and misinterpretations. And, of course, there is still the possibility that her husband will incur the same diagnosis as his father in time. Despite the consequences, Vicki assures me, or should I say that the spirit-guides with whom she consults assure me, that Jessica’s death prediction is not a misinterpretation. No such luck.

The day eventually came when I presented the question to Jessica the same way I presented it to the rest of my friends. “If the prediction were about you, would you want to know?” She answered without time to blink, “There is no way I would want to know!” And then, like many of my friends, she did think about it momentarily and said, “Shit, it’s not me is it?” laughing, somewhat fearful of my answer. I assured her it was not, myself relieved of a gargantuan burden.

At the time that I write this, Jessica is still living. However, by the time this book is edited, sold to a publisher, re-edited, printed and published, and then finally distributed to bookstores and purchased by you, I can only guess—based on other predictions I have seen come true from several psychic mediums I now know—that Jessica has crossed-over and is presently home. She is happy and engulfed in the love and light of the spirit world. By the time you finish this book, I hope that you will be comfortable with this conclusion. Whether Jessica has passed yet or not, we are all heading in that direction one day. We can celebrate our homecomings together.

So what can we learn from the predictions mediums give us? After reading the upcoming chapter on “The Purpose of Mediumship,” you will learn that I do not believe a medium’s gift is to give us future predictions. Most of the mediums I know prefer not to give predictions. Fortune telling is more for psychics, not psychic mediums. In fact, many mediums dislike clients asking for predictions about their careers, relationships or other personal matters. They prefer to let the spirits coming through offer whatever information they feel is most important. Spirits tend to have a better understanding of what information needs to be conveyed to us at the time of the reading.

However, if a prediction is communicated from a spirit during the course of a reading, a medium will usually pass that information along to the client. In this instance, there might be a reason such future information is important. In some cases, clients tell the medium before the reading begins that they don’t want to hear anything about the future. In this situation, the medium must take extra care in weeding out anything of this nature from the messages being conveyed.

In more than three years of experience with spirit communication among several psychic mediums, not once have I received future predictions where the message has been of vital importance. I have had several predictions that have come true. But the insights I have gained have less to do with being forewarned about some future event and more to do with learning a lesson much more meaningful—that there are certain events in our life that are charted and meant to be.

Aside from the predictions that have already come true in Jessica’s story, Vicki predicted that Melissa’s brother, Scott, would be engaged in a year. Knowing Scott the way Melissa and I do, that seemed like an unlikely prediction. Nevertheless, it came true. Vicki also told me (in my first reading) that my cousin, Brian, was heading toward a divorce. That also came true. She said it would be a long time before that took place, but that it was heading in that direction. It took two years before that became a reality.

Upon arriving at Joe’s house one day, he predicted that Melissa would be worried that a spot on her skin might be skin cancer. He said a deceased loved-one promised it was not. It was true. Melissa and I had been worried about such a spot, and had been to a doctor the day before seeing Joe who had confirmed that it was not skin cancer. I was really impressed with Joe’s accuracy even though our concerns had already been relieved by the doctor the day before. I think the message was simply to corroborate the doctor’s message in case we were still worried.

Whenever a medium’s predictions come true, two things go through my mind. First, it is another hint that Jessica’s death prediction will likely come true. With each verified prophecy, I know Jessica’s tragic ending is one step closer. Second, I realize that these events being predicted are already recorded on the calendar months or years before they occur. It makes one realize that when someone says at a funeral, “That was such a freak accident, it must have been meant to be,” that there might be some truth to that comment. Why else can a plane crash allowing a few people to live while hundreds don’t make it? Why else can someone die from falling off a chair while another lives after falling off a roof?

When I worked as a private investigator, I used to investigate a lot of automobile accidents. I would marvel at the cars that had flipped over and crushed from all sides, yet the passenger had walked away unharmed. In the same week, I investigated auto accidents where there was so little damage that it was hard to believe the person’s injuries resulted in paraplegia or death.

Just the fact that a psychic medium can predict events months or years ahead of time makes me wonder how much freewill we really have. I don’t have a definitive answer—and I don’t believe anyone does—but when you consider these predictions along with the freak inconsistencies like the plane and auto accident examples I just mentioned, one can’t help but to wonder if everything that happens to us is “meant to be.”

Perhaps the only freewill we have is in our choice of how we will “react” to the everyday events in our life, positive or negative. Maybe we only have control over the now, the present. Get in a traffic jam, and you have a choice whether to get frustrated and pound the steering wheel or turn up the radio and relax. Break a leg, and you have a choice whether to whine and moan about it or use your immobility as an opportunity to write that book you have wanted to write or read those novels you have wanted to read. Lose a loved-one to cancer, and you have a choice whether to mourn the rest of your life or learn from your loss how short and precious life is and savoir the time you continue to have with other loved-ones who are still living.

I went to an astrologer the other day in Boston named Eric. It was my first experience with an astrologer. One of the key insights I walked away with was that my astrological chart seemed to indicate that my life was planned before it started. Again, I was given a clue that freewill has more to do with how we “deal” with life’s events, and less to do with controlling the events themselves. I know the goal setters out there won’t want to hear this, but if this is really the case, it could actually bring a person peace-of-mind knowing that whatever is happening in their life is supposed to be happening. It kind of takes the worry out of life, worrying that you’re heading in the wrong direction.

Eric said I had one of those charts that would send most astrologers screaming with fear. He laughed as he said it, of course, and was reassuring that a chart like mine could still lead to a fulfilling and abundant life.

I guess my life has had its struggles. Growing up with an alcoholic father was one of the more prominent issues I dealt with in my childhood. In my teens, my father become disabled from back injuries and never worked again in his life. Neither the alcoholism nor the disability helped my family’s financial situation, and my family even received Welfare benefits for a couple months. I’ll never forget how mean middle-class kids can be when they accidentally find out another student’s family is on Welfare. Still, falling into a five-year depression as an adult where I was sleeping an average of eighteen hours a day, struggling with suicidal ideation, unable to work during four of those years, and then dealing with the memory loss and confusion resulting from twenty-one electroshock treatments was the highlight of my struggles. I guess these are the issues to which Eric was referring.

On the other hand, I know I had it easy compared to some people. There are a lot of people who have suffered much worse than I. I can only assume that their astrological charts must really send astrologers screaming.

If you’ve ever seen an astrologer as skilled as Eric, you understand when I say it felt like he knew my life’s story. Even more so, it felt like he knew me. He listed every character trait that makes me unique. Some traits I’d prefer to forget, others are more empowering. Eric knew about both kinds. Melissa sat with me during my astrological consultation. Her head nodded a lot in agreement with the things Eric was saying. I tried to get her to stop during the embarrassing stuff. She just emphasized her nodding with a comment like, “Oh yeah, stubborn, that’s Bob. You nailed it!” Eric got a kick out of her comments. I just wanted to give someone a little kick under my chair, but she was out of range.

In reading my chart, Eric brought up my father’s alcoholism and disability. He brought up my depression. He brought up a whole bunch of stuff that happened in my life. How can this be? Eric knew nothing about my life; we were strangers. And he was using astrology methods that dated back thousands of years. This means he could have predicted these life events on the day I was born, not thirty-eight years later after much of this stuff had already taken place. He wasn’t looking in hindsight. He was simply looking at the location of the sun and planets in relation to the exact minute and place I was born. That’s kind of mind-boggling when you think about it.

I’ve had three psychic mediums tell me what is in store for my future: Vicki, Jackie and another medium named Christine. All were in agreement and each medium knew little-to-nothing about me before giving me the information. The information they gave me was both amazingly detailed and astonishingly similar. It was eerie hearing them all say the same thing over and over. The words they used were not exact, but the accounts of what was to come was precisely analogous. One called me a messenger. Another referred to my work as some form of communication and sharing of my experiences. Vicki, as I mentioned in the first chapter, realized I was an author. And every one of them saw me speaking to large audiences.

They didn’t tell me everything that would happen in my future. They didn’t tell me a lot of the tough stuff. There are certain occurrences in our lives that we need to go through to learn lessons. These are opportunities to work through issues and raise our spiritual energy. Knowing about them beforehand might affect how we deal with them, so we aren’t told. Nonetheless, Vicki, Jackie and Christine did tell me what to expect in my career over the coming years.

I have also had another Boston astrologer interpret my chart. Her name is Elizabeth; and she, too, was unbelievably exact. Although Eric spoke of my future, he focused more on my past, reading my life like a book. Elizabeth focused most of the session on my future. Her interpretation of my astrological chart paralleled what the three mediums told me. Melissa and I sat in awe as she repeated the same events told to me by Vicki, Jackie and Christine. She didn’t talk about my health, my relationships or any other issues in my life, only my career—just like the mediums. She had a gift for making my chart extremely understandable, and my future was never more clear.

Elizabeth also introduced Melissa and I to a guy named Roger, a palm reader. I had a palm reading from Roger the same day I had my astrology chart done by Elizabeth, again with almost equaled predictions. Roger isn’t your typical neon-sign psychic-fair variety palm reader. He is a palmistry practitioner of high reputation in the Boston community who is described by people in the holistic field as a man of “class,” “wisdom” and “experience.” In fact, I learned that Roger has over twenty years of experience with palmistry.

My immediate first impression of Roger reflected what I had heard about him; he was well dressed and immaculately manicured, visually a classy guy. He also has a gentle energy that makes you feel warm and welcome in his presence, irrespective of his large bear-like frame. As he spoke, the words that left his mouth mirrored his reputation, revealing an inner knowing beyond his years.

I won’t bore you with the details that Roger revealed of my life except to say that he labeled my life purpose as being a teacher to an audience of some sort and suggested more than once that this teaching might come in the form of writing. He spoke of my need for creative expression and added that this expression needed to be the outlet for what my palms indicated as an interest in psychological and metaphysical subjects. Then he gave me some predictions about my future that were, once again, extraordinarily equivalent to what the three psychic mediums and the two astrologers have predicted of my future—including the same timeline of forecasted events. I should remind you, too, that more than one psychic medium has given me detailed predictions that have already come true. So this is all more than just an interesting coincidence; past experience has taught me that these predictions are likely to occur.

I have told others about these paralleled messages from varied practitioners, and some people think I’ve gone over the edge by believing in astrology and palmistry. The funny part is that I only came upon Eric, Elizabeth and Roger after stating more than once that I did not believe in these new age practices. I was as skeptical about these things as I once was about spirit communication—probably more. But once I openly announced my skepticism, the Universe placed these gifted people in front of me. Since the messages Eric, Elizabeth and Roger gave me were so “disturbingly” similar to what Vicki, Jackie and Christine told me, I can’t help but to deduct that there is more to astrology and palmistry than I once believed.

I say that all these messages are “disturbingly” similar because it reinforces the idea that I don’t have a lot of control over what is going to happen in my life. That thought can be disturbing at times, especially for people who feel a need for control and predictability in their lives. The major events—call them triumphs or tragedies—seem to have been charted. And from what I have learned, I was probably the one who charted them while I was still in the spirit world preparing for my birth. I guess I have nobody to blame for the tragedies and struggles in my life other than myself. Again, my freewill comes into play in how I react to these charted occurrences, not in how I control their outcomes.

In the end, this indicates to me that there is a purpose for which we exist on this earth. We can discover our individual purpose by going within to that inner-knowing mechanism known as our intuition, higher self or subconscious mind. My experiences also indicate that there is more than one road to this spiritual insight. Perhaps we are intuitively compelled toward the alternative modality that best fits our energy and personality, or perhaps it is a crapshoot and does not matter which method we utilize for our needs. Whether we choose mediumship, palmistry, astrology, meditation, imagery, visualization or any number of other possibilities, the only prerequisites necessary seem to be that we keep an open mind and make the effort to try something. Without an open mind, we dismiss possibilities and prevent miracles from ever entering our life. Without any effort, all the wonder and wisdom of the world is wasted because no one can help us to improve our life until we take action to help our self.