Michael Bodine: Answers
2:30-4 p.m. on Saturday, March 1 at Earle Brown Heritage Center, Brooklyn Center, MN
MICHAEL BODINE IS a member of the most well-known family of intuitives in the Twin Cities. He’s the brother of noted author, psychic, ghostbuster and healer Echo Bodine. And he feels destined to remain a full-time psychic and medium for the foreseeable future, albeit reluctantly.
“I’d like to do other things,” he said, “but every time I try to do other things, I get sucked back into psychic things because dead people show up.”
Perhaps that’s what he’s meant to be doing.
“I guess,” he deadpans. “I got the low end of the stick somehow.”
Author of Growing Up Psychic: From Skeptic to Believer, Michael displays a quick wit and a voice not all that dissimilar to actor Jim Carrey. He’s worked in California where he was known as the Psychic for the Stars, but he’s now back in Minnesota and will be one of three keynote speakers at the Minneapolis Psychic Symposium on the topic of “Answers.”
“The whole thing about psychics is that people come to them for answers,” he said, “even if they have simple questions like, ‘Is there really such things as ghosts?’ or ‘Is there something other than what I think going on?’ Everyone who comes to me is coming for answers. A lot of times, it’s not always the answer that they want, or the answer that they hope it is.
“My point is that people actually get the answers themselves. They just don’t realize it. My talk will be about how people can get the answers on their own, without needing somebody to tell them. People usually have the answer. Either they don’t want to pay attention to it or it’s not what they want to hear. If they go to a psychic, then I guess it validates it more for them.”
The problem, Michael explains, is when people use psychic advice instead of their own personal sense of what to do when making potentially serious life choices.
“In my line of work, it’s really dangerous for somebody to become too attached to what you’re saying, because they may take power away from themselves and put the responsibility on somebody else. It’s bad in any situation to rely too much on somebody else. It’s too much power for an outsider to have. In my mind, that’s not right.”
When a client who has received accurate information from him in the past begins to rely on him too much, Michael said he may lie to them and tell them things he knows will not happen so they stop relying on him so much. “I tell them ahead of time that if they start becoming too dependent upon me, then our relationship will change.”
He says it’s frustrating because every day he meets people who have their own answers but do not pay attention to them. He says the reason many of us choose not to listen inwardly is the result of how we feel about ourselves.
“I think it’s all about self-worth. Somewhere along the way, they were told that their opinion does not matter. In a simpler term, it’s the devil. In a more complex way of looking at it, it’s someone’s negative self-talk, their attitudes about themselves or a lack of respect for themselves. It stops people all the time.”
All psychics can spin their advice negatively or positively, and Michael says that makes a difference in their popularity. When he told clients that their world would fall apart unless they do this or that, they responded with fervor to his readings, and he was booked solid for a year. When he adopted a more positive approach to emphasize the light in situations, people didn’t want to hear it.
“They were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m a great guy, blah, blah, blah — when’s the bottom going to fall out?’ That’s what they wanted to hear. Since becoming aware of this, it has really bothered me. People talk about love and light, but they don’t live love and light.”
After working 40 years as a psychic, Michael says the truth is that psychics are not all-knowing people who have all the answers and have figured everything out. Sadly, he says there is too much competition among psychics as a result of what Michael calls “third-eye envy,” when a psychic is jealous toward another psychic who seems to be more accurate in making predictions.
“Psychics are no different than everyone else,” he said. “We’re all here in the same soup, trying to figure things out and trying to be better. Psychics talk to dead people. That’s their job. But they’re still learning how to be in relationships, and how to not smoke so much and how to eat better.
“We’re all learning, and if we’re lucky enough to get some stuff right, that’s great. But some psychics are claiming 99.9 percent accuracy, and that’s not true. For many of these psychics who come along, I just bless them. They probably are better psychics than I am. If they can give it a good name and believe positively about what they do, then that’s great.”
He says the key is being a psychic for the right purpose.
“If 10 people come to me, I cannot do readings for seven of them, because I’m a future guy. That’s my thing. I see opportunities coming up. When I sit down and look at somebody and tell right off the bat that they aren’t going to do anything with their opportunities, I cannot do a reading for them. I can’t charge them money to tell stuff that I know is not going to happen. So I tell them I cannot pick up on anything or it’s not a good time for a reading.
“If I am just doing this for the money, then I’m screwed. (The client) has to get something out if it. I don’t know about other people, but that’s the way it is for me.”
For more information on Michael Bodine, visit www.michaelbodine.com | For more information on Minneapolis Psychic Symposium, visit www.Edgelife.net
