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MARIA MELCHIORRE
Staff Writer
Last weekend was Fredonia’s annual Family Weekend. For many students, finding entertainment to keep the whole family occupied can be a bit of a struggle.
This is where Spectrum comes in.
The student-run campus entertainment group has been organizing presentations and activities for Family Weekend for years. This was the second year that they decided to reinstate an older Family Weekend activity, the Psychic Fair.
“We brought it back last year, and it sold out pretty quickly,” said Stephanie Willis, senior public relations major and president of Spectrum.
The group brought in six local psychics, each of whom had a different technique: some read palms and others utilized tarot cards. Upon entrance to the event, which was held in the Williams Center Multipurpose Room, attendees were given a laminated number that directed when they would have their turn with a psychic.
The numbers currently being read, as well as which numbers should be on deck for the next readings, were projected high on the wall. The event had an autumnal flair to it. The projections were in warm leaf tones and the cards were covered in foliage. Whilst families and students were waiting for their readings, there were various crafts for them to do, such as flower crowns and bat masks, as well as assorted refreshments provided by FSA.
The Psychic Fair, both last year and this year, included a presentation by a famous psychic on Friday evening and the psychic fair on Saturday evening. Last year’s presentation was by Hypnotist and four-time National College Entertainer of the Year, Tom DeLuca. This year, Spectrum brought in one of the nation’s foremost and most sought-after mind readers, Robert Channing.
“It’s been good to have something to entertain my parents, besides bothering my roommate,” said Madeline Friedler, a freshman dual major in art history and history, who brought her parents to the talk, the show and the fair.
“There’s a little something for everybody, a real diversity of things to do,” said her father, Dan Friedler.
The six psychics were situated at individual tables around the circumference of the room. The individuals receiving the readings would be asked to focus, or briefly meditate, on a question they had. This question could pertain to life goals, relationship or familial issues — really anything. The psychic’s reading would then work off the energies of the subject’s concerns.
“I think it gives a little direction sometimes for some of the kids and the parents and it helps them. Often I actually help the families because there’s struggles that I see with the parents and the children and I help give them a little insight to help each other out through these struggles” said K.J. Mushy, an intuitive reader who performed three-card spread tarot readings at the fair. Elizabeth Reilly, a freshman theater arts major said that the readings were “very accurate” and addressed some real concerns she had:
“Specifically, financial issues and my future, because I want to open up a dance studio and that can be quite risky,” stated Reilly.
Reilly’s sister, Alana Reilly, stated that her psychic was really attuned to a struggle she had been going through.
“He knew that I had just overcome a big problem in my life,” she said.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Alana’s youngest sister, Sarah, was disappointed that the psychics wouldn’t work on anyone under 18: “I got up there, and he was like ‘nope, sorry, too young,’” she said.
Spectrum’s next event will be the annual Hanging of the Greens, which will be held in the Williams Center MPR from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 3.