Ekaterina Netchitailova

It was in Sheffield in 2015 that I briefly ended up working as a psychic, your best Tarot reader, on eBay.

It is easy as long as you know how to interpret the Tarot cards, and possess the confidence to read them for other people.

By the time I landed in that job, I had considerable experience in Tarot. I had all possible decks, and was fascinated by the phenomenon. Cards do speak.

While I am a Christian, I never saw other religious or spiritual outlooks on life as a problem. For me, the most important thing is the belief itself. That there is something else out there.

Before launching myself into being a psychic, I had consulted all, or almost all, other psychics on eBay. I had the same question for all of them: “Will I ever publish my memoir, The Russian Patient?” It had been a major work, which I started in 2003 to cope with what doctors call ‘bipolar disorder’. Writing about it gave me purpose and motivation to carry on with life as if nothing had happened. With such an attitude to life, I managed to change my country of residence three more times, get another PhD bursary (in England), give birth and raise my son.

In 2015 though, right after finishing my PhD, I struggled financially. I had a small visiting lecturer role at Leeds Trinity University, but it wasn’t enough beyond covering the basics, which we managed together with my son’s father. I needed more money to buy an occasional toy for my son, and face creams and serums for my skin.

So I opened my own little psychic shop on eBay. When eBay banned psychic readings, I moved, like many other psychics, to Etsy.

Obviously, despite knowing Tarot quite well, I was an amateur. Doing psychic readings involves considerable knowledge of how to interact with the world out there, and it isn’t always good to know your future.

Nevertheless, I was a popular psychic, with some people becoming regular customers. I am not sure whether it was due to my knowledge of Tarot, or just common sense, or both, but I was able to answer the majority of questions directed at me:

“Will I marry the guy of my dreams?”

“No, honey. As you said, he is a married man living in Singapore. I see this union as unlikely to happen. You have the Three of Swords for this. Broken heart. But (and I made sure to end all my readings on a positive note) you have happiness ahead of you, as the cards say…”

Some kept coming back, until I decided to stop for my own sanity (or what remained of it). Psychic reading drains you, and I realized at some point I was playing with fire.

And so I stopped. But my psychic shop on Etsy is still there, and maybe, who knows, one day I can try it again. They don’t ask for any diploma for it, which makes it a very problematic business, as there are very few real psychics and a lot of fakes.

You can be a good psychic only if you underwent proper initiation in the field. I did. In my psychoses. The rest usually pretend.