About Rene
People ask me how I got into metaphysics and divination. I’ll try to answer that here without being too long-winded.
Coming of age in the Bay Area, you could say I was surrounded by the cosmic and occult. In my late teens and early twenties I bought books by favorite authors like Hermann Hesse and Alan Watts at a shop that advertised itself as specializing in metaphysical literature. I didn’t know what that meant, and couldn’t seem to get a clear explanation. Back then, if you didn’t understand something you would avoid admitting your ignorance. I figured I would eventually “get it” through osmosis or some such thing.
What ended up leading me to astrology were some of the writings of Carl Jung, who I had to read for a class in college that was required to graduate. It was a Catholic institution and the alternative was to take a course in church dogma. Jung’s ideas had a mind expanding effect on me, so much that I kept reading his dense, circular books after I got out of school.
Eventually I got to Synchronicity, an A Causal Connecting Principle. A chunk of this book is devoted to an “Astrological Experiment” using sets of married couples and seeing how many of them had the planetary indicators of compatibility. The trials showed that the rate was significantly higher than random chance. I, unfortunately, could not make heads or tails of all this because Jung just assumed that the reader was already conversant in the language and symbols of astrology. So I walked to a nearby used bookstore and bought a basic manual to bring me at least part way up to speed.
Around the same time, there was a local free monthly that featured an astrology column with an essay followed by questions from readers answered by the writer, one Thor Christensen. I’d never had an astrology reading so I contacted Mr. Christensen through the periodical. Soon afterwards, he called me on the phone to see if I wanted to set up an appointment, which I did. Fortunately, my mom was easily able to locate my birth certificate and tell me my time of birth.
The reading was at Thor’s flat in the Noe Valley neighborhood and lasted one hour. Almost all of it dealt with my birth chart, with only brief mention of a couple of upcoming transits. The chart seemed to know more about me than my parents, my friends and even myself, which struck me as pretty incredible. According to Thor, it indicated that I had great potential an astrologer or psychic. I was more than a little dubious of that, since my interests lay elsewhere at the time.
Eight years after my initial immersion, a friend told me about a want ad in the San Francisco Chronicle looking for psychics, astrologers and tarot readers to work for a new 900 number call-in service. About 15 people showed up on the first day of work. We got just a smattering of calls that day, but the operation rapidly grew. Instead of getting paid by the amount of time spent on the phone with customers, we made a flat $8.00 an hour, which was fine by me. That was more than I had been making at the natural food store.
Working at this place (called The Psychic Source) had two main benefits for me. One was the other people who worked there, several of whom remain very good friends. We learned a lot from each other. The other benefit was having to read for people from other parts of the country besides the West Coast, people with gut level issues far removed from the “spiritual” concerns we might have been more familiar with. These people didn’t want to hear feel-good new age nonsense. As an astrologer, all I had to work with was an ephemeris. The company wasn’t about to pay for computers and software.
The Psychic Source mushroomed, sometimes hiring some fairly underqualified individuals to man the phones. It got chaotic and unwieldy. Eventually most of the staff was laid off all at once in response to a none-too-subtle move to unionize. I and most of my friends remained for about four more months until the final end. It was kind of sad, but it instilled in me the unquenchable desire to do readings as my my main job.
A week or so after the reading I called Thor and asked how one learned to calculate charts. Keep in mind that relatively few people owned computers in 1982. According to him the best instructions and tables were in The American Table of Houses and The Horoscope, The Road and it’s Travelers, by Alan Oken. I diligently embarked on figuring out how to construct charts of close friends and family. That got me up and running.
Later that same summer I told a close friend that I was getting into astrology. She said I might also find Tarot cards interesting. Her boyfriend would sometimes break them out at parties and do readings that were curiously right on. Might as well check that out too, I figured. Another friend told me to get the Rider-Waite deck. This I did and, once again, went to the same used book store down the street to buy a basic intro to the subject, Mastering the Tarot, by Eden Gray. Having done this, I set about learning the meanings and symbols of the different major and minor arcana cards. I also liked to just stare and ponder them. Some of them in particular held great interest for me, like The Fool, The Moon, The Hermit and The Hanged Man.
Practicing on my mom, sisters and friends was at least as important as reading books in learning the required divination skills. I never did take classes or lessons. Eventually, people here and there started offering nominal sums of money for readings. The opportunity to do readings increased in frequency and I developed a small word of mouth reputation. To this day I am eternally grateful to to those kind folks who trustingly gave me the chance to test and develop my skills in those early years.
I finally got my chance to do just that a mere ten months after moving to Seattle in 1996. One of my first friends up here introduced me to a friend of hers named Paul who also happened to be an astrologer. Paul read out of a store in the University District called Gargoyles Statuary. Paul was extremely charming and personable. We had lively conversations about astrology on a regular basis. Meanwhile, my first job in Seattle ended after about half a year and I had to go on unemployment. A couple of months or so after that, Paul had an abrupt falling out with the owner of Gargoyles and left in a huff. I very opportunistically called Paul and asked if he would mind if I tried to work out of the store he had just left. He said no problem and gave me the name of the owner. After an interview where I did a tarot reading for her, I got the green light to rent the space I remain at to this day. Strangely, Paul wanted nothing more to do with me after that. Neither did the friend who introduced me to him. I subsequently learned that Paul had not been doing readings nearly as long as he had claimed. I also found out that he would come on to younger female clients, and had badly mistreated at least a couple of girlfriends. Good riddance to him.
For the first few years I was eating rice and beans a lot, while slowly but steadily building up a clientele. More practical types would have thrown in the towel and gotten a real job. Not me, though I did work the 2000 Census which helped financially. Twenty-one years later the work is much more consistent, and new prospective clients come in all the time. I can honestly say that I love my job. It never gets mindless or routine, and it gives me a sense of purpose and pride. It’s an endless source of wonder and a connection to some source of intelligent universal order. Also, with extremely few exceptions, I enjoy reading for my clients who I genuinely have the highest respect and liking for. The day will never come when I can just “phone it in”. There’s always more to learn and new ways to become better. I just turned 65 and a few people asked if I plan on retiring soon. Never! I will continue doing this as long as l live.
