The psychic next door

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.”

Confused and distressed, 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.

“A lot of doors got slammed in my face,” she said.

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.”