A visit with the white witch of Bishopdale

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 15

A visit with the white witch of Bishopdale

By

GENEVIEVE FORDE

When she reads your hand, the white witch of Christchurch is very businesslike. She seats you opposite her at a low table, in a comfortable armchair near the glowing heater, turns on a small table lamp and asks for your watch. “Are you right handed?” She takes your right hand, palm up, and sprinkles some talcum powder on it, rubs it in, holds it under the lamp, takes a black biro, and, holding your watch, begins to trace the lines of your palm with swift accuracy. “You will live till you’re 85, outliving your husband by three to five years. You will need help in your last few years, but you won’t be geriatric. You will die in New Zealand. You will marry late in your 33rd year and have three children; two boys and then a girl. (Drat. I wanted at least six) It won’t be a domesticated marriage but you will be spiritually and physically perfectly compatible with your husband. “You are disgustingly healthy at the moment. Very independent, almost stubborn. Impatient with the people around you. You will spend five to eight years in Australia. Two trips to England, travel to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa. I see a fair man coming into your life later this year. I get the name Graham — whether it’s a Christian or surname I don’t know. . .” and a lot of other things which don’t bear repeating here. There is no experience quite like it. It took a week, well, a couple of days at least, before I could bring myself to wash off the tracery of black lines from the palm and inside wrist of my right hand. It was like Ash Wednesday in a way — when the priest puts ashes on your forehead and reminds you that you are dust and will return to dust.

The tradition is that you don’t wash off the ash, but leave it on as a sign. Another similarity is that when you are faced with a definite limit on your life,

even if it is as far away as 85, it is a bit scary. You rationalise by saying to yourself —she’s only a fortune teller, a dreamer; what does she know? How can you possibly read people’s lives in their hands?

But incipient scepticism and the sudden chill of mortality are softened by Mrs Ellis’ obvious concern, her warmth, her certainty, and the depth and comfort of her armchairs.

Mrs Ellis (“call me Maureen”) has been reading palms for 20 years or more, mostly in Christchurch. She lives in Bishopdale, and for the last 16 years has been advertising her services.

For a small fee (from $3 upwards, depending on how long she spends with you) she will read your palm, and with the help of psychometry and clairvoyance, will tell you all about yourself, your past and your future, with a few things thrown in about your relatives as well.

It is actually against the law to charge people to tell them their fortunes, but she does it anyway. “The law was made in the dim dark ages when people were burning people like me at the stake,” she said. “You are not allowed to be paid for furtune telling here, or accept any article or gain whatsoever.” In some states of Australia and in England and America it was different; fortune tellers could be paid, she said. But she has some reservations about a liberal law. “In a way I wouldn’t like to see it changed, making palmistry legal, because you’d get an awful lot of charlatans. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of psychic people who can help others, but without the wisdom and the knowledge ability, you won’t give someone a true reading. You must study — have experience. Palmistry is a very accurate science.”

About six months ago she was taken to court. •“Somebody laid a complaint against me and they

sent a policewoman to me for a reading. I told her she was a social worker! They convicted and charged me. The magistrate took a month making up his mind.” The law distinguishes between telling fortunes as a means of livelihood and telling for entertainment. Mrs Ellis has framed a copy of a letter from Mr Michael Connelly, the former Minister of Police, dated July 31, 1974, which she calls, “My diploma.” It states

that section 12 of the! Police Offences Amendment Act makes it an offence to tell fortunes by means of palmistry if the fortune teller is acting for reward. However, subsection three of the same section excludes anything done “solely for the purpose of entertainment,” the letter says. “It seems that there is already a distinction to be drawn between palmistry practised as a means of livelihood and as a means of entertainment.

There would seem to be no objection to small payments being made when the practice of palmistry is solely for entertainment." To this end, Mrs Ellis has a notice outside her front door. “All readings for entertainment only.” “People today are more open minded,” she said. “With all the magazines and books on astrology around. It’s accepted reasonably by the establishment. But when it comes to the likes of me wanting

to charge a fee they clamp down and say no.” She thinks the horoscopes in popoular magazines and papers are generalised and could be “quite dangerous” if people took them too seriously. “I like people to take my readings in a light vein,” she said. “Nobody can tell anybody of their personal life unless its face to face with an open discussion with feelings and with someone who has had their problem themselves so that they can give some tangible advice.”

She gets all kinds of problems in her living room. “I get Mr Williams on Monday night with a problem; Mrs Williams on Wednesday night with a problem. We may get a reconciliation on Friday, or they may decide to separate. They say they get more help from me than from a psychologist or a marriage counsellor they have been seeing for months on end. “With family problems, if you- seek help within your family, they tell you what you want to hear. Family opinions are always biased. “I’ve seen some pretty demanding women and some pretty hopeless men, and silly young girls of 14 asking if their husband’s eyes will be blue or brown; people from all walks of life; businessmen that come and ask if it’s a good month to put a business on the market. I’m not infallible, but I might suggest they wait until August, then I get a grateful letter or phone call telling me that the business was sold in August. "I predicted on television that Princess Anne would have a baby boy about November 15, 1977 on my daughter’s birthday. That was before she’d even conceived.”

She never tells people more bad news than she thinks they can cope with and never gets bored with their palms and problems. “I find every reading interesting and different,” she said. “There are so

many different relationships people can have. Your relationship with your husband might be one thing but the next girl who comes along may have an unhappy relationship, or marry twice, or they may have just as compatible a relationship as yours, or they may go into business together. There are no two palms alike in the world.” Mrs Ellis is a solo

mother of three who was divorced 18 years ago. cue came from “a broken home” and lived in eight orphanages and five foster i homes and went to countless schools. “I wasn’t a s naughty girl, I just didn’t have a home. My parents were separated and kept 1 shifting, I had an alcoholic 1 father and a very unstable s childhood.” One of her J own daughters was badly crippled and had both legs • amputated at 17. “I feel I’ve been through i

every traumatic experience in life I could go through. You get a textbook psychiatrist who’s been through nothing. How can he help people? I feel that through all these experiences I can appreciate every problem that sits in that chair. I’d rather devote five hours to some needy person than half an hour to six not so needy people. I’m not mercenary.

She often goes out to give cripples, multiple sclerosis patients and old people readings in their homes. “Many of them are just lonely and want someone to talk to.” Her own children have led stable and happy lives for the last 18 years, she said, and she was very happy with her own lot. “I would go so far as to say that I’m one of the happiest women in Christchurch,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish any of the

experiences I’ve had out of my life; they’ve made me a better person.” As far as she knows, she is the only practising palmist in the South Island. People come from as far away as “Lake Taupo. Australia, Westport — all over,” to see her. Some make a day of it, like a group from Timaru who sometimes charter a bus and bring their lunch. “We spend several happy hours together with lots of cups of tea. reading palms, tea leaves, and talking about numerology and psychometry,” she said. Although she describes herself as a “white witch” (black ones do evil, white ones good), Mrs Ellis says she is not a medium, and does not go Into trances. “I don’t believe in it. I have no faith in the spiritualist churches whatsoever. They do a lot of harm to impressionable young people and gullible old people. She is “definitely a Christian, there is only one infinite intelligence as far as I’m concerned —

the one all the churches are praying to.” She regularly attends the Church of Christ. "I go to them mostly because they preach strictly from the Bible. I’ll do no readings or any business dealings on a Sunday. If someone’s desperate I’ll see them and give the money to the blind or something. She has a prayer about her vocation which she wrote herself many years ago and can say 'off by heart. "Father in heaven I ask Thee now. To use me in service to Thee somehow. My heart is desirous to yield in some way, And Father, I promise, my soul shall obey. I want so to prove my faith and love, So honour me now with words from above. Tell how you can use this mortal called 1, And Father, I promise to certainly try. "Thats my philosophy. That’s exactly now I feel every day of my life. If I can help some person, then I’m being used.”