What Happens When A Psychic Lawyer Has A Seance In Your Office
Psychic lawyer Mark Anthony visited BuzzFeed and maybe talked to a few people's grandmas.
BuzzFeed Staff
BuzzFeed Contributor
Mark Anthony is a self-described "psychic lawyer" who has authored a number of books on spirit communication.
Recently, he visited the BuzzFeed office to sit in a room with eight staff members, to see which (if any) of their passed relatives might show up to communicate with him.
"I don't do love life or lottery tickets," he clarified. "This is not hocus pocus or magic. There is a physiological basis for this.”
Then he explained the physiological basis. I did not understand it. But he did also say something that I think is true: "Just because something might not be in someone’s realm of experience, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
What follows are his descriptions of several spirits in the room, as well as his conversations with staff people who felt that (just maybe) he was describing someone they knew. Of 10 possible spirits, three resonated fairly to very closely with three different staff members. (More on the ones who didn't later.) Those are the ones we included below.
Some of the potential subjects: Julie, Deena, Sami, Keely, Krystie, and Conz.
1. Erica
Erica had the most activity during the reading, with the possible appearance of both of her grandmothers.
Anthony described seeing a pale, redheaded woman (Erica remembers him saying "auburn," I remember "red") who is exhausted. He said he felt her lungs filling up with fluid, difficulty breathing, and major pain in lower abdominal region.
He also tasted butter, to which Erica volunteered that she ate butter pats at the diner she went to with her grandma all the time. (Anthony told us that sometimes the things he senses have meaning to us, not the spirits he's interacting with.)
Anthony also said this spirit had digestive issues, and couldn't eat seeds. He threw out a few names: “Miriam, Mariam?" Erica looked blank.
“Month of May?”
“My parents were married in May, my dad’s birthday is in May…” said Erica.
“She wants you to know that she’s aware that you worry a lot, and from the outside you don’t look like you do. You’re very good at masking your feelings and it’s served you well. You tend to internalize a lot of your stress and you’re beginning to feel it in this region," he said, motioning at his stomach. Erica nodded.
“The way you’re internalizing stress — you need to find a way to process it better. It’s going to affect you in the adrenal glands. What I’m feeling from her, there’s a lot of issues in that region in your family.” He paused.
“What’s with March?”
“I think it’s actually my other grandmother because her great-grandson was born on March 17, after she passed. She passed in March too," said Erica.
“You’ve got both your grandmothers here,” he said. “What’s with the Comet, I’m smelling Comet? Who’s the clean freak?”
Anthony also mentioned "Friday" and the numbers "14 and 24, or their reverses," but their meaning wasn't clear to Erica at the time.
Erica's reaction at the time: "I was totally overwhelmed. I've always considered myself open to the power of psychic readings/astrology/etc., but never had a psychic reading before. The identifying traits he mentioned were very clearly my grandmothers' and also very clearly things he could not have known without my telling him (which I didn't!). And the messages they provided were eerily on target with things that have been happening in my life, too."
Erica's reaction one week later: "Less emotionally overwhelmed, but still very intrigued by the whole thing — especially since the numbers he mentioned and the day of the week (Friday) have yet to come into play. Mark mentioned their meanings may not be clear until later on, so we'll see..."
2. Krystie
Next Anthony described a man. “There’s a lot of breathing issues. He could have had a nasal sensitivity. I see him in the hospital with a respirator. Blinking sensation, which indicates to me an issue with mental clarity prior to passing. Lot of medications," he said. This seemed to resonate most strongly with Krystie.
“Was he real funny before he died?" Anthony asked her. "I see him pulling out the tubes — he wants you to know that all of that is gone now. He wants you to know that you’re very complicated. It’s hard for people to get to know you. You have a maze around you. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s simply how you are.”
Krystie started dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“I’m feeling a limp sensation down the left side of my body, was it a stroke or heart attack?” She nodded.
“He says ‘Dying was a pain in the ass,'" Anthony said, and Krystie laughed.
“Escargot and snails? What’s up with that? Is that a reference to moving at a snail’s pace?” Krystie didn't know; she said this didn't make sense to her at the time.
“He says, ‘You take a long time to make up your mind on things. You overanalyze things and you don’t trust yourself enough. You have it all. He’s showing me the letter E, E, E.” Again, she wasn't sure what that referred to.
“He says, ‘Why didn’t you call?’ He’s not criticizing you but he’s bringing this up as an issue. What’s going on with your mom? He’s very concerned about your mom. I’m not getting the signal that she’s going to die.” It turns out Krystie's mom was in the hospital the week prior.
“When you call your mom that makes her day. Doesn’t need to be long. Three to five minutes. That makes her day, call your mom.”
He went on. “He knew he was going to die and he wasn’t afraid and he wants you to know that. Was he in the military?” (She nodded.) “All old soldiers the battle comes to an end. Did you read to him?” (She nodded.) “That made him really happy. Are you writing something separate from all this? A novel?”
"Nobody knew about that," said Krystie, and everybody laughed.
"He says 'This is your defining work,'" said Anthony. "I’m seeing pomegranates and pears."
Krystie responded that she’s picky, and doesn’t eat those. Anthony saod Krystie's relative knew that, and that's why he brought them up.
Krystie's reaction at the time: "I was really emotionally affected for the few minutes that this was going on, and couldn't hold back from crying. I thought everything he was saying was maybe just a coincidence until he brought up my mom, and it sent chills down my spine because she had just been in the hospital recently."
Krystie's reaction one week later: "After letting everything sink in, I'm definitely more skeptical than I initially was. Looking back on everything the psychic said, he made pretty sweeping generalizations that could've worked for a lot of people. That being said, the mourning process is hard, and my great uncle who died last January seemed to have nearly everything in common with whatever 'spirit' Anthony was 'communicating' with. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE."
3. Keely
Later, Anthony said he was getting another female spirit coming through. "She passed in her later years — not elderly necessarily. She had some extra weight in her thighs and butt area—" (we all laugh nervously) "shortness of breath, feeling hot and agitated a lot prior to passing. I’m getting that she was on a lot of medications. She didn’t realize she was as ill as she was. Her situation went from bad to worse pretty quickly."
Keely mentioned someone who went to the hospital for a checkup and died shortly after, and thought the physical description was accurate.
"Letter M?" Anthony said.
Keely said they called her grandmother Mimi.
"She had an idea that she was sicker but she tended to put other people first," said Anthony, and Keely agreed that makes sense.
Anthony asked if she had pain in her jaw, and Keely was unsure, though she thought her grandmother may have used a false tooth.
"Bananas?" he asked. "Love 'em? Hate 'em?" Keely looked impassive. "They’re also an indicator of potassium issues," he said. Keely's grandmother did have those.
He mentioned something about maroon, or Maroon 5, none of which Keely believed connected to her grandmother.
"Did she have a lot of allergies? Dust sensitivity?" Keely said yes, her grandmother's house was dusty.
"What about purple?" he asked.
“She used to gift wrap my presents in purple wrapping paper," said Keely.
"Here’s her question to you," said Anthony. “'Why do you think you’re not good enough?'” At this, Keely looks shocked.
“You are," he said, speaking for Mimi. "You have everything you need to succeed. It’s high time you start believing this. She’s showing me the numbers 6 and 2. I'm hearing 'Happy Birthday.'”
“That’s crazy,” said Keely, who also started crying.
“Stay out of politics," he said, again on behalf of Mimi. "It’s a nasty game. They all say one thing and they mean another.”
“She used to watch politics shows all the time but she didn’t understand any of it," said Keely.
Keely's reaction at the time: "At the time I was really surprised about how emotional I got — because I'm a huge skeptic. I'm not super open to the idea of communicating with spirits, and figured going in that it was going to be totally fake. The idea of a loved one trying to communicate with you and give you some kind of closure is really powerful, whether you're skeptical of the legitimacy of it or not. There were a couple things that only sort of resonated and were pretty general, and a couple things that were spot-on and a little unnerving."
Keely's reaction one week later: "Going back over it, there are definitely some holes. I think a lot of it has to do with the energy of the group, and kind of getting swept up in the idea of getting to talk to someone you never thought you'd get to talk to again. That's really powerful, whether it's real or not."
In conclusion:
Of the three women who received the most accurate readings, two of them (Krystie and Keely) are somewhat ambivalent about the experience, while Erica very clearly believes some spiritual connection was made. While several other spirits were described by Anthony — some of which first seemed to sort of fit a dead friend or family member of someone in the group — the details and connections ultimately seemed too tenuous for anyone to claim them definitively.
Overall, everyone agreed that everyone's ghost relatives had really nice and encouraging things to say about them.