Contact with other realities

During my adult life I have never gone to psychics or spiritualists of any kind, it is difficult for me to take that step. And it is not because I consider them all to be fakes, cheats or manipulators, which there certainly must be, but rather for fear of opening some hidden door that I don't know where it might lead me.

In these things I prefer to be cautious. I fully believe that reality is much wider than I or anyone else may think; in that vast space of the Universe there may be powers unknown to me. Therefore I do not doubt that there are people who have capacities of those we call "supernatural" and that they can influence people to activate their sensibilities. I think that this whole world, which may seem strange to many of us, has some possibility of existing.

During my childhood it was very common to talk about the "evil eye". It was said that there were people who consciously or unconsciously could leave in children a deep malaise that did not yield to conventional medicine. It was enough for those people to cast their gaze on a child for the child to completely change his or her good health in a matter of hours.

Many times I had to accompany my aunts and other relatives to the person who had the power to remove the discomfort. Each one did different things, some said prayers, others passed liquids over the child's body, others rubbed various herbs on the skin. The fact was that those children who were in a state of decay, not wanting to eat, with permanent whining and even with episodes of fever, began to recover after those people said that they had removed the evil from their bodies.

But the strongest experience with that world of the occult was with my own paternal grandmother, a subject I always talk about.

These days I took advantage of my mother's visit to ask her if grandmother had always had powers. My mother confirmed that since she joined my father, seventy years ago, my grandmother already had those powers that made her so famous.

As a child I lived in grandma's house, it was a really uncomfortable affair because abnormal things happened there. The other children harassed me asking me why my house was always full of people, they told me that in the neighborhood they whispered that my grandmother was some kind of witch. All this caused me confusion, doubt and uncertainty.

From morning to evening, Monday through Saturday, Grandma's house was full of people coming to consult with her. Sometimes the number of people was so large that they would discreetly line up on the sidewalk in the street.

I have never known precisely what all those people were looking for when they went to Grandma's house. I don't know if they were looking for her to make them successful in love, to improve some ailment of the body or spirit, or to tell them what the future held for them. Everyone must have had a different motivation.

I would spend hours watching those people as they waited their turn to go to the little room where my grandmother would attend to them. They were normal people, just like anyone else. I could not distinguish in them any outward sign of desperation or extreme concern. They did not arrive crying or screaming like crazy, they were calm people.

Nor did I ever see a miracle like someone coming in in a wheelchair and walking out. But all the people left grandma's little room with a different look on their faces, calmer, comforted, with hope in their eyes. Maybe Grandma was an expert in sowing hope.

I must admit that many times I have wondered if Grandma was a phony who was fooling all those people. But the evidence tells me otherwise. I never heard of anyone complaining to her for having told her the wrong thing. Rather, she was showered with accolades. People brought her gifts of all kinds and very influential people from the political and business world invited her to fancy parties. I used to accompany my grandmother to those lavish parties where they would send for us in luxurious chauffeur-driven cars.

But the most irrefutable proof that my grandmother had a gift, which made her capable of helping people, came at the moment of her death...

I was already a man when she died. My grandmother's funeral was very crowded, the people of the neighborhood where she lived walked her urn all over the neighborhood. People from the windows bowed to her remains. A show of appreciation, gratitude and respect that really impressed me. My grandmother was definitely not like the rest of us mortals....

This is my entry for the initiative proposed by @WEEKEND EXPERIENCES community, below.

Psychic or fraud.

Do you think psychics, tarot card readers, fortune tellers etc. actually have a skill or gift for it...or are they a sham, fraudulent, unscrupulous and simply preying on the weak-minded?

Thank you for your time.