Just as Barack Obama was being feted Thursday night by Vogue editor Anna Wintour and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein at Weinstein's West Village pad -- a celeb-filled fundraiser of $35,800 a ticket -- a little further east, at the Bowery Poetry Club, a recognized psychic healer was telling a hipster-hip hop-media crowd exactly this: "It's not up to President Obama to change the world. He can't do anything. I feel sorry for him. He won't be elected to another term."
The BPC, a New York institution based on the beatnik tradition, usually features folks like poet and Warhol acolyte Taylor Mead or tranny bingo each week. So, it may have surprised a few of the regulars to see "Metaphysical Night" on the roster. Kate Sekules, a seasoned editor and author, had originally come up with the idea to start the discussion about tapping into energies and consciousness, as she stated. "So I would not have to cover my Eckhart Tolle on the subway with my New York Times." Sekules brought in professional intuitive Peri Lyons, who is also a singer and a co-founder of the Moth storytelling series, to oversee the discussion. And, Dr. Carmen Harra, who predicted Obama's demise, took the stage as the headliner.
Dr. Harra recently released her latest book, Wholiness, through Hay House, a metaphysical publishing house under the guise of Louise L. Hay, a woman who publicly debuted many of the soothsayers, mediums, and medical energy intuitives who later became regulars on the Oprah Winfrey show. Dr. Harra, a licensed psychologist with abilities to channel the dead became a press darling a decade ago when she was seeing clients like actresses Candice Bergen, Courtney Cox, and Jennifer Lopez. She had done a reading for Hillary Clinton at a fundraiser and ended up counseling half of the fashion staff at the New York Times Magazine, which is how I discovered her when writing for the paper. She had emigrated here decades ago from her native Romania and after a near death experience as a child, she began to connect with other dimensions beyond present time.
Now, in a form-fitting black dress, black and white cardigan, and glittery black pumps, Dr. Harra -- who is based in Queens and South Florida -- discussed the topics in her book. She addressed the crowd about the coming of the year 2012, which marks the end of the Mayan calender. She said there would be chaos before enlightenment, but that enlightenment was coming. "We are at a turning point as a species." She said. "Where we either have to change or die out." She talked about the satellites failing in the next year or so, which will crash the banking system, making our money worthless. She alluded to the German philosopher Schopenhauer who stated that for evolution to come there needs to be chaos first. Dr. Harra told the audience. "The manmade system, killing, and suffering will be wiped out. We will have a new way to pay for goods, get back to nature, to the beginning."
The fun really started when Ms. Lyons -- who also talked about meditation and seeing ghosts as a teenager -- grabbed the microphone and started fielding questions from the crowd for Dr. Harra. One gentleman -- a striking young black man who sauntered in by chance before the BPC's later program of upcoming hip hop artists -- wanted to know why spirits come back in certain forms. Dr. Harra gazed at him intently and told him. "I see a man around you, Steve, he has a saxophone." He gasped and said, "Yeah, that's my uncle." Another woman inquired about how long her nonagenarian grandmother would live. " A couple more years." Said Dr. Harra, who also said that after the passing, the woman would have a baby, basically the reincarnation of her grandmother.
The audience, glued to their seats, included some media talent like casting agent Jen Vendetti and E. Jean Carroll the monthly advice columnist for Elle Magazine. To break up the predictions, Dr. Harra sang "Summertime" and "When the Saints Go Marching In." Ms. Lyons performed a little ditty that she wrote to end the program. And Bob Holman, the owner of BPC said, "I've never seen so many women here at one time!" Call it magic or what you will, but he was grinning widely.