Tricked into believing I was cursed
A ‘psychic’ told me I was cursed
The psychic looked at my palm and shook her head, looking worried. ‘Your aura’s dark,’ she said. ‘Very dark’.
I was in a small room in New <RUN 7KH VLJQ RXWVLGH KDG R HUHG $5 readings and I’d decided to get one on a whim. Now I wished I hadn’t gone in.
‘It’s an old curse, you’ve been carrying it round with you for a while,’ the psychic continued.
What? I didn’t believe in curses, but kept listening all the same.
‘It was a woman with dark hair,’ she added. ‘You took something away from her.’
As I thought back over the jobs I’d lost, the relationships that had failed, for the ¿UVW WLPH , wondered if there was more to it than just bad luck. Could the psychic be right?
Was I…cursed?
She was looking at my shocked face with concern.
‘Come back tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’ll meditate on it tonight and ¿QG RXW PRUH ¶
Wicca connection
Walking back to my hotel, I remembered the ex-girlfriend of my university boyfriend. She’d been into Wicca – and she’d been furious when we got together.
She had dark hair. Was she the person behind the curse?
I went back to the psychic the next day.
‘The woman who cursed you thought you were going to have kids with the man you stole from her,’ she said.
It rang true.
‘She lit seven black candles to curse you in health, wealth, love, success, happiness, peace and fertility,’ the psychic went on. ‘Have you been experiencing abdominal pain?’
‘Yes,’ I gulped.
‘It’s to be expected. You see.’ She took a deep breath. ‘She slaughtered an animal in your name and tied up the uterus. This woman wanted to ruin your chances of having a child.’
I gasped in horror. The curse had left me infertile!
‘Don’t worry,’ the psychic told me. ‘We can break the curse – but it won’t be easy.’
She told me she’d light seven white candles to counteract the seven black ones. She gave me a bottle of ‘aura wash’ and told me to buy white handkerchiefs and eggs.
‘On each handkerchief, write your name, date of birth and one wish, then wrap three eggs in one of them and sleep with them by your pillow,’ she said. ‘Oh, and because an animal has been slaughtered, you will have to make D VDFUL¿FH of your own.’ Μ:KDW VRUW RI VDFUL¿FH"¶ , DVNHG deeply alarmed.
‘We won’t kill anything,’ she reassured me. ‘I want you to take ¿YH ¿IW\ GROODU ELOOV FULVV FURVV them on top of each other, wrap them in the second handkerchief and sleep with them in your pants held against your womb. Then bring it all to me tomorrow.’ Stepping back out into the street, my head was spinning. Was I really cursed – or did the psychic just want to rob me?
The worried part of my brain won out against the sceptical side. I bought the handkerchiefs - but decided to use 10 one-dollar bills for the ritual instead. I had my aura-cleansing shower and lit my white candle, which immediately spat black globules into the air. Next day, the psychic carefully unwrapped the clammy eggs.
She didn’t say anything about the one-dollar bills, but I felt like a cheapskate all the same. Picking up an egg in a handkerchief, she rubbed it up and down my body. ‘Remove this evil, restore her fertility, her fortune, her happiness, break this curse, break it, break it, break it,’ she chanted, then indicated for me to crack the egg.
, WKXPSHG P\ ¿VW GRZQ DQG LW broke inside the handkerchief.
Black inside
What the….? The yolk was an inky black colour.
‘That’s the evil coming out of you,’ the psychic explained. ‘But I don’t think it’s all gone. Do it again tonight with tomatoes – they’re easier to read. And make more of a VDFUL¿FH 'RQ¶W IRUJHW DQ DQLPDO was slaughtered in your name.’
That night, I cooked pasta and kept aside three tomatoes to sleep with. I returned to the psychic the next day with $250.
The ritual was the same as the day before.
‘Break it, break it, break it,’ she chanted as I squashed the tomato.
As she unwrapped the handkerchief, I felt sick to my stomach with disgust.
Inside it was a lump of revolting hairy matter.
The psychic held the money above my head.
μ'r \RX VDFUL¿FH WKLV PRQH\ IRU the animal that was slaughtered in
She told me the curse had made me infertile
your name?’ she asked me.
‘Yes!’ I cried. There was the sound of paper notes ripping as she ‘sacrificed’ the money.
‘Is the c-curse gone?’ I stammered. I was due to fly back to England the next day, and I certainly didn’t want this hanging over me.
‘I think so, but you never know,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll contact you if anything more needs to be done.’
Back in London, I got the final set of instructions. I was to fill a box with a piece of gold to represent my worth, earth to bury my bad luck, salt to represent the bitterness in my life, sugar to represent the sweetness, and a photograph. f then had to sleep with this under my bed and send it to New York along with a wire of $1,350.
$1,350! That was a lot of money – but I had to do this. f couldn’t risk my fertility, my health.
po f headed to the bank to do the transfer, and got home to my flat, feeling lighter.
But something made me open doogle on my laptop, look up the words, ‘egg, tomato, psychic.’
jan loses life savings after getting conned by egg and tomato trick, read the first headline that popped up. toman remortgages house in con trick, said another.
Shocking discovery
f felt light-headed as f read on. The handkerchiefs were used to hide the sleight of hand as the fraudulent ‘psychic’ swapped the egg or tomato for one they’d prepared earlier. And, of course, the money wasn’t ‘sacrificed’ at all. I’d been conned. f leapt to my feet and rushed down to the bank. I was just in time to stop the bank transfer before the money left my account. That was several years ago, and I learnt a hard lesson about trust. The fraudster preyed on my fears, nearly succeeded in robbing me. The upside to this experience is that f realised that f alone was responsible for my mistakes, and that it was up to me to improve my own life. I set about doing this, and within a month of my return, I’d secured a small part in Stephen Fry’s feature film Bright Young Things, and a few months later, got selected to appear as part of a panel of presenters on Channel 4’s late night TV chat show eeavy TV. I also got to fly in a hot air balloon and ride elephants in South Africa. It’s amazing what a change in mindset can do.
I’m now a writer – and a mother. I’ve travelled the world and met lots of interesting people. There’s no ‘curse’ darkening my life – there never was.
I’m just glad I didn’t spend $1,350 before I found this out!