BY ESTER BLOOM

In print | Published September 25, 2003

I’m getting married! At least according to Josh, the South Street psychic.

Since I was a romantically underutilized adolescent and already bitter about love by middle school, I wasn’t sure whether to ask Josh whether he saw a divorce in my future, too. Sitting in the cubby in the back corner of Harry’s Occult superstore with beads hanging down off the doorway and soothing posters and tapestries on the walls, I decided it was easier to just go with it.

I asked about my future husband. “You’ll have a choice,” Josh said, drawing two cards from the Tarot deck and laying them out on the table between us. “A warrior and a selfish bastard. Pretty easy, huh?”

He laughed.

Then he looked me in the eye and said, “Avoid alcoholics.”

With the assistance of the tarot deck, a bowl and a spoon, Josh diagnosed me with an addictive personality, an inability to take orders, a fear of failure, a tendency not to be as aggressive as I should and a desire to work in entertainment. “You should work in entertainment,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll get cranky.”

He also mentioned that I have a hearing problem which is causing my frequent headaches, and that my stomach registers my anxiety to the degree that I could get ulcers someday. A chiropractor I saw last week also pinpointed my head and my stomach as trouble spots. The chiropractor failed to mention, however, that I would have a son and possibly two more children after that.

The experience, which lasted roughly half an hour, was remarkably chill, even relaxing. Josh wagged his finger at me a couple times, reminding me that I need to be happy with myself if I want to be happy in general, and so on, and I nodded, contrite. It was like therapy, only I didn’t have to talk.

The demand for Josh in the store was substantial. Large ladies on folding chairs, waiting for their turn, took up half the store. Although I found that reassuring in terms of his reputation, I wondered how often these women shelled out $15 for that feeling of increased certainty about the uncertain.

For $10 at Harry’s, you can buy your own tarot deck and teach yourself how to read cards. I did that as an act of rebellion against 13 years of Jewish school. (“You have some issues with religion,” Josh said. “Was it, like, crammed down your throat when you were growing up?”) In some ways, this reading at Harry’s felt like coming full circle since, my first year here, I read tarot cards for President Al Bloom and his secretary.

Harry’s is the oldest and most prestigious spiritual shop in Philadelphia, located on South Street between 12th and 13th streets. In addition to tarot cards, you can buy your fill of potions, powders, candles, cloths, books and paraphernalia. Signs around the store exhort you to use them only for Good. If you’re willing to wait about an hour, you can get your session with Josh, too. At $15, it felt worth it, at least once.

And if I do end up married by 25, as per his prediction, you’re all officially invited to the wedding.

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