THE BUSINESS OF GOOD AND BAD VIBRATIONS

JACKSON, Mo. -- Jackson Boulevard runs through the City of Jackson like a conservative streak, right past Virginia Mitchell's place of business. Mitchell fits right in, a devout Roman Catholic and a mother of three, an entrepreneur who works out of her home.

Her business license reads "Card and palm reading by Sister Virginia."

Mitchell's is one of the first businesses travelers see as they enter Jackson from the east. Signs outside her house at 4141 E. Jackson Boulevard proclaim her to be a palm, tarot card and psychic reader and amenable to walk-ins. She also reads crystals and runes.

The table where she reads for clients is decorated with statues of the Virgin Mary and Merlin. A tapestry on the wall has images of angels. "We believe in angels," says this fortune teller in an Old Navy sweatshirt.

Mitchell runs her business like any other business that provides a service. Many of her clients are regulars who return once a week or once a month. Advertising and word of mouth are her main sources of new business. Her billboard ad visible from Interstate 55 will go up soon.

Her service is to provide answers to people who have questions about their love lives, their jobs, their health, "whatever may come to mind," she says.

Helps lost souls

She is not only a fortune teller but a spiritualist, a term she defines as someone who reads auras and vibrations in people's spirits. As a spiritualist, she says, "I reach through my inner spirit to help them get closer to their higher spirit and deal with their emotions. I guess I'm like Prozac."

She also is like the boy in the popular movie "Sixth Sense," who helped lost souls, she says. "He helped them get back on track. That's basically what I do with the living."

Many people who come to see her are looking for their soul mate. Mitchell can point them in certain directions, but she says the problem often is that they are not open to love.

"Women and men have a tendency to build walls around them ...," she says. "That tendency draws people away from them." Her job is to get her clients to open up.

A misconception is that psychics can read minds, she says. "I'm not a mind reader. If you want someone to guess your name or your weight or your age, go to a carnival."

She defines psychic ability as "the ability not to read what the person is thinking but what they're feeling." Feelings are much more essential, she says.

Mitchell does not understand why some other Christians don't believe in psychics and even oppose them. "Jesus himself was a psychic," she says. "He foresaw events. He knew when his own death was."

Sometimes she herself has seen death in the cards. "I just try to tell them to be careful at that time and that place or be careful of that person," she says.

Runs in the family

She lets God and Jesus guide her. "I'm like a disciple. I let Him speak through me. I hope he gives me guidance and strength to help whoever walks through my door."

She was born with psychic gifts, Mitchell says. Her mother is a psychic and her mother's mother was one. When she started having premonitions at age 7, her mother told her not to be afraid. "She said, use it as an advantage to help those in need."

She had a psychic business in the St. Louis area before buying this business last October from another psychic named Victoria. Mitchell declined to have her photograph taken for this story. She explained that she is part Native American and believes cameras capture the spirit.

She does not claim to be right 100 percent of the time. "Seventy percent of the time people come back and say, I'm glad you told me to do this," she says.

Making predictions doesn't scare her. "Clinton's going to get indicted," she assures.

Ken Parrett, executive director of the Jackson Chamber of Commerce, says the chamber has never received any complaints about either psychic. "It doesn't bother me as long as she's conducting ethical business practices," he says. "... Anybody over here is entitled to open and run any legal business they want."

Psychics and fortune tellers used to be found only at carnivals. "Now it's more of a profession," Mitchell says. "People take it more seriously.

"My mother was a psychic before psychic hotlines were ever thought of."