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INDIANA DAILY STUDENT           FRONT PAGE

The psychic next door

By Danielle Paquette | IDS

POSTED AT 12:19 AM ON Feb. 3, 2010

A friend’s dare brought junior Nicole Aders to psychic Rebecca Bartlett.

Curiosity anchored her to stay for a session, though she was skeptical and terrified.

She sat erect and drew quick breaths – in and out, in and out – as though she sprinted up the steps and down the blank, gray corridor to Bartlett’s office. It was a rainy Friday, and water drops speckled the surface of her suede boots.

“Try to relax,” Bartlett said. “You need to unwind. Calm down for me.”

Aders said she was calm, really. She thought she’d try to forget her business student rationality and open her mind to a realm beyond economics, accounting and basic understanding.

“This is my first time,” she said. “I’ll try.”

Bartlett closed her eyes and began twisting and turning her hands in the space around Aders’ body.

She said she’d start with an aura reading to receive inner-body information and check for ailments.

“Your white blood cells are back to where they should be,” Bartlett said. “Does that make sense?”

Aders pursed her lips and nodded. She had undergone chemotherapy less than a year earlier, which wreaked havoc on her immune system.

“I’m getting that bananas are important to your body,” Bartlett said. “You have a slight fragility in your spine. And you just hate being under water.”

Aders giggled. She said her worst fear is drowning.

Bartlett continued to trace lines in the air, as though reading an invisible trail of Braille.

“Did you have something bad?” Bartlett asked. “And did it somehow affect your fallopian tubes?”

Aders paused.

“Yes,” she said.

Doctors discovered a malignant tumor on her ovaries three days before spring break.

“Well, Nicole, whatever you had – it’s gone,” Bartlett said. “It’s not affecting you physically anymore, but I sense it’s still with you mentally.”

Bartlett sat down in a wooden chair. An inch separated her knees from brushing her client’s.

“Whatever you had, it’s not coming back,” she said.

Your neighborhood psychic

Since relocating her small business from Nashville, Ind., to a minimalistic office she rents at Sixth and Walnut, Bartlett said she’s conducted sessions with more than 1,000 clients.

Tarot cards and crystal balls aren’t part of Bartlett’s psychic regimen. Rather, she said she interprets energy through various methods of sensual receptivity or “clairsenses” – psychic abilities she said most people can harness.

“Almost everyone has experienced spontaneous extrasensory perceptions,” Bartlett said. “It comes up in times of adrenaline rush, life-threatening situations and sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.”

Bartlett said she believes humans can master psychic abilities with concentration, proper training and above all else, belief.

“It all begins with mind over matter,” she said.

But if a mind is closed to the possibility of psychic existence, Bartlett said nervous or negative energy acts as a force field she just can’t penetrate.

“I had a man come in once who openly told me he didn’t believe in what I do,” Bartlett said. “After that, it was hard to get a reading. I need a relaxed, open vibe to work with.”

Manifest destiny

As a child, Bartlett said she experienced frequent bouts of déjà vu.

She said her mother swore she possessed an inner “homing device” – no hidden object could stay out of her small hands for long.

As she entered her teenage years, Bartlett said she’d have occasional prophetic dreams: hurricanes in foreign countries would later appear in local headlines, friends’ future engagements would later manifest with shiny wedding rings.

Then one night, her visions shifted from arbitrary to alarming.

“In high school, I had a dream that my close friend got into a car accident,” Bartlett said. “I rushed to warn him. But later that day, he wrecked his car on the highway.”

Premonitions continued to haunt her sleep as she grew older, she says, and sensitivity to others’ emotions and afflictions clouded her thoughts.

“At times, it was very difficult because no one would believe me,” Bartlett said. “And I had such a desire to help people.”

Bartlett began to travel.  She studied philosophy in Ithaca, Greece. She attended classes in Bloomington as an IU undergraduate student.

After bringing her studies to a local hospital, she made a surprising discovery.

“It was the most ironic thing that had ever happened to me,” Bartlett said. “I was learning to be an X-ray technician but found that I didn’t need technology or equipment to detect tumors and other problems. I already felt when they were there.”

Convinced her skills could aid the community, Bartlett said she contacted several police departments and the Indianapolis FBI in hopes of helping to solve crimes and locate missing persons.


Local Influence

Bartlett, 39, offers a wide array of psychic services to clients in one-on-one, hour-long sessions. Psychic healing, illness detection, preventative advice and communication with deceased loved ones are most commonly requested.

Though she said her profession receives widespread skepticism, Bartlett said she’s nothing like flashy, bangle-wearing psychics portrayed in popular culture.

“I’m not a fake,” she said. “That’s why I offer a guarantee. If I don’t make a psychic connection, I don’t take your money.”

Bloomington resident Barbara Burton said Bartlett saved her life.

“She conducted a body scan at the beginning of our session,” Burton said. “When she got to a certain point in my lower abdomen she stopped and said, ‘watch that.’ ”

Following the visit, Burton scheduled a medical appointment.

She said her doctor found a cancerous mass in her colon that was on the brink of threatening her life.

“I hadn’t had any obvious symptoms at that point,” Burton said. “I’m so lucky I met Rebecca because I wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

On the airwaves

B97 radio show host Pam Thrash met Bartlett when the psychic offered her a free reading.

“I’m always game for free stuff, so I tried it,” she said. “I was blown away by the things she said, particularly pertaining to my deceased father.”

Thrash insisted Bartlett conduct psychic readings for her show.

When she agreed to make an appearance, listeners tied up the phone lines with inquiries. One woman called to ask about her future career.

“You’ll work with the CIA,” Bartlett said after a beat of silence.

The girl laughed.

“Yes, I just interviewed with them,” she said. “But should I go to Mexico after graduation?”

Bartlett paused.

“I don’t believe that’s a good idea,” she said.

That summer, Bartlett read of an epidemic, colloquially known as the swine flu, running rampant in Mexico.

From the other side

Massage therapist Sue Shaver, owner of Bloomington Massage Therapy, said she knows it sounds crazy.

But after deeming Bartlett’s findings too accurate to be coincidental, she began to seek psychic sessions three times a year.

“I’m absolutely convinced that she’s the real thing,” Shaver said. “I get chills when she speaks.”

Shaver asked Bartlett to communicate with her deceased father and nearly sobbed upon hearing the results.

“I’ve never told anyone that I’m afraid of elevators,” she said. “Rebecca told me my dad said not to worry. He holds my hand every time I’m on one, and the building owners check it every month.”

Bartlett acquired Shaver’s father’s Italian-American dialect when she spoke.

“It sounded just like him,” she said. “I mean, how could she know he talked like that? I knew it was my dad.”

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Psychic sets up shop downtown

MEGAN O’BRYAN

　- Brown County Democrat 7/14/2010

  At age 16, Rebecca Bartlett’s dreams started coming true – literally.

   Events and images would come to her in her sleep, and, later, she would see them on the news.  Around the same time as the start of the dreams, Bartlett also began receiving “messages of warning.”

   “That was an awesome responsibility, because it was imperative for me to try to pass the information along and not fear anything,” she said.

  Bartlett started working with her skills and experienced “psychic growth spurts” in her mid-20s. Four years ago, she started putting them to work.

   “All my life, this is what I wanted to do,” she said, sitting in her new space in Nashville’s Heritage Mall – the second location she’s had in town. “It was such a struggle not to. I was never very happy unless is I was doing this.”

   Before opening her own business as a psychic, she would wrestle with repressing her abilities at work. Outside of work, she would use them, providing insights to friends and other key figures.

   Now, her abilities are her work.

 When she meets with a client, she looks first at his or her name. She then holds onto a metal object belonging to the client, reading it through an ability known as psychometry.

   Afterward, Bartlett does a full body scan, reading through a person’s energy system to look for and pinpoint medical issues and other problems.

   Bartlett makes it clear that she doesn’t diagnose problems, recommending that clients talk with a doctor about any issues she might identify.

   She answers questions about everything, from health, career and family to outcomes of situations.

   “I bring in a little bit of all aspects of my abilities into every question, so that we can see all sides of it – present, some impressions for the future on down the road,” she said.

   Bartlett knows people might find her hard to believe. “I would have had a hard time believing that I would be able to do what I can do now until it actually started happening,” she offered. “So, I do understand.”

   Those who come to her with an open mind, though, she feels she can help.

   “I think the bottom line is that I want to be able to alleviate pain and suffering, help people get their lives on track – to heal, emotionally and physically,” Bartlett said.

  She divides her time between her Bloomington and Nashville shops, spending the weekends and latter part of the work week in Nashville.

   A thorough session usually lasts about an hour, but times can vary… Appointments in person or by phone are available.