Chamber fires 'psychic' adviser

ST. LOUIS -- A not-for-profit pro-business organization has fired a longtime consultant who made $1.4 million advising it on leadership and other matters but claimed to be a psychic and clairvoyant.

Richard Fleming, chief of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, told media outlets this week that the economic-development organization severed its seven-year ties with David Levin after learning Levin had begun melding his psychic beliefs with his consulting.

Fleming said that while RCGA officials knew 64-year-old Levin was "spiritual," word of his claims to have supernatural powers became a credibility issue.

In background information it supplied to The Associated Press, the RCGA said it parted ways with Levin on Sunday "due to consultant's decision to present his work and firm in ways inconsistent with RCGA's role in the St. Louis community."

Fleming did not return telephone messages Thursday, and Levin did not respond to telephone and e-mailed requests for an interview.

Levin's claims of being clairvoyant were made public when the Colorado man alleged in the September editions of the British magazine Prediction that he, his wife and their 15-year-old son all are psychic.

According to the article, titled "A Psychic Family," Levin launched a consulting business for "high-profile business executives" in 1982. Fleming, the story suggests, met Levin in 1993, not long before Fleming was tapped in August 1994 as the RCGA's president and chief executive. In 1997, Fleming hired Levin as an executive coach and strategic planner.

"David has this uncanny combination of intuitive sense and real ability to see the big picture," the story quotes Fleming as saying. "His intuitive vision has been a huge help to me as a leader as well."

The magazine reported that in 2000, Levin formed the Boulder, Colo.-based Center for Intuitive Leadership, offering "intensives" meant to help business leaders "potentiate their intuition, open their hearts to their spiritual truths, and expand the impact of their leadership, all through a transformational clairvoyance-based method."

The article said the Levins were spending August and September in London, offering the seminars. In one writeup promoting a session there earlier this month, Psychic and Spirit magazine said the events, among other things, would include "a pragmatic understanding of how one's leadership space and one's life purpose are integrated, which gives spiritual dimensioning to everyday leadership activities."

"Mr. Levin combines deep experience as a corporate strategist ... with his intense study of Western and Eastern cultures and his unique gifts as a seer," that promotional spot said. "In so doing he is able to provide visionary counsel to visionary leaders in business, government and civic arenas."

"The truth is that having the opportunity to do this for a living is a miracle," the Prediction story quotes Levin as saying. "There aren't many people who do this."

Since 1997 for the agency, Fleming said, Levin has produced more than 400 pages of research, conducted interviews and facilitated discussions.

The RCGA said that from 2000 until last weekend, Levin's role with the group "evolved from broad-based strategic planning to implementation of programs in support of RCGA's strategic regional initiatives."

The RCGA's payments to Levin varied yearly, from $59,739 in 2000 to $249,973 in 1997.

------

On the Net :

St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, http://www.stlrcga.org