It all began with a visit to my post office box a couple of weeks ago, where to my delight I actually found two pieces of mail.

Oh, joy!

They were business-sized envelopes with windows through which I could see my name printed on a computer-generated form. One envelope had in the upper left-hand corner the name 'Valerie Morrison' and, beneath that, squiggly lines which I took to be representations of brain waves. (This was an easy guess, since printed across the envelope were also the words "This powerful Brain wave pattern inside could be worth thousands of dollars!")

The other envelope had a return address in the name of Irene Hughes, with a P.O. box in Las Vegas. On Irene's envelope, there was a printed message which claimed she had written me recently. She was contacting me again, she said, because the information she had could change my life.

You can imagine how hard it was to choose which one to open first.

I decided to save the brain waves for last.

After addressing me as her "dear friend," Irene begins by stating that she knows that I am surprised by the receipt of this letter, but that it comes "not a moment too soon." Irene goes on to introduce herself and explain that my name had somehow gotten onto her "special list." ( She doesn't explain what the list is, though-or how names get on it.) Recently, Irene writes, she had been struck with a psychic gut feeling that she should contact me immediately. The feeling was strong enough, apparently, to bear the expense of mailing a packet of information along with her letter. She also included a black-and-white picture of herself.

All this trouble just for me.

As it turns out, Irene is a world-famous psychic who is well-known and "talked about on radio and TV." Oprah Winfrey and Merv Griffin both know Irene very well, and while they are the only two personalities mentioned by name, she claims to be the psychic consultants for "Film and TV stars, Government officials, High ranking Church officials and clergymen, and leaders of Industry."
She's obviously a very busy lady. I'm touched that she took the time to tell me personally of her concern about my well-being.

She is aware, she writes, of the rough times I'm experiencing and the disappointments I've had in the past. She also knows that I deserve more riches out of life. Thankfully, it is within her powers to show me the way to go and the choices to make during the next 365 days of my life. With her guidance, she says, I will finally get all that I've dreamed of and desired, within the next year.

After a few testimonials to her phenomenal success rate, Irene mentions how great it would be to be driving a Cadillac or a Mercedes. With her help, I'll be able to do just that, as well as finally getting my personal life squared away, to boot. For her to do all of this is "routine," she writes-in the same way a good doctor helps you when you're sick or a good lawyer takes care of you when you're in trouble.

In order to help me, though, Irene needs more "personal psychic details" so she can complete my Personal Forecast & Life Development Chart. To this end, Irene has enclosed a psychic interview form which asks such questions as "Do you believe you have been unlucky in life?" and "Are you often depressed about things?" It also asks what I would do if I won the lottery.

Would I quit my job?

Would I be generous?

Once I complete the form, I simply need to mail it and a check for a mere $20 (Irene usually gets $500 per consultation) to Las Vegas for processing. Soon, Irene will provide me with a complete 365-day astrological and psychic guide which will take me down the path to good fortune.

Tempting, isn't it?

Valerie Morrison and the brain wave letter were next. It opened promisingly: "G. Thomas Powell...help me! I need your help now!"

With that, Valerie certainly got my attention. After all, it's not every day I receive a personally-addressed postal S.O.S. from someone I've never even heard of, much less actually know.
After saying that she had been up all night writing the letter, she then writes, "You know that I am a psychic. Everyone knows that." I don't know if I would agree with either of those statements, but Valerie is the one with magnificent psychic powers, not me.

She pauses for a moment to fill me in a little bit about how psychic powers are strange and unpredictable. She then tells me that she has the ability to foresee the future with varying degrees of force, depending upon the strength of the current "cycle" or "wave" she's experiencing. Sometimes the forces are so strong that Valerie breaks into a sweat and has so many revelations flashing in her head that she thinks she's delirious. She'll go into a trance where "winning numbers" are revealed to her.

Other times, she writes, she can barely do anything.

The night before this letter, though, Valerie had the strongest psychic episode of her entire life. This is how Valerie describes her vision: "I saw many incredible and wonderful things. I saw your winning numbers and gigantic amounts of money in startling detail. AND G. THOMAS, I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU! I COULD NOT GET YOU OUT OF MIND."

The forces got stronger and stronger until Valerie, scared that something was seriously wrong, called her doctor, an old family friend who happens to be a brain specialist. He came right over, took one look at Valerie and immediately whisked her off to the hospital. There he hooked her up to an electroencephalogram (which Valerie is nice enough to explain is "a special machine that measures brain waves").

When the brain waves started printing out, the doctor was amazed and said they were the most incredible ones he had ever seen in his medical career. They indicated "an enormous amount of mental energy" and looked as if they had been scanned from the brain of a "super-powered being."
The most astonishing thing about this incident, according to Valerie, is that during this period of time she continued to think about me, G. Thomas Powell, and the good things that were in store for me. She says she feels I am "the cause of the powerful psychic brainstorm [she] was experiencing."

In the envelope was a small piece of white paper with three blue squiggly lines running across it.

Yes, they are Valerie's brain waves.

She explains that in order for me to end the psychic torment she is still undergoing, I must establish a mental link with her. Once that is accomplished, Valerie will be able to provide me with clearer details on how to obtain the riches she saw waiting for me in her vision.

Valerie therefore instructs me to take the brain-waves printout and hold it to my forehead for one full minute. I should concentrate on money and synchronizing my thoughts with her. Afterwards, I'm supposed to stick the printout and my check for $20 in the special courier envelope that's been provided and mail them off to Valerie. She'll be contacting me shortly with information she gleans from the union of our two brains.

Oh yes: please remember to make your check payable to VALERIE MORRISON'S BRAIN WAVE.

After these two letters, it certainly seemed as if I was meant to receive psychic counseling from someone. So I first secured a promise from WAG's editors to bankroll my attempts to gain riches through the help of a mail-order psychic. Then I had to decide which psychic to use.
To be honest, it really didn't take long to pick Valerie and the brain waves as the way to fame and fortune. After all, I do feel a little guilty about giving her a brain fever. And I'm sure her stay in the hospital cost much more than $20.

Before sending the brain-waves printout back to her, though, I'm going to take a few days to meditate with it against my forehead. After all, a few hours of concentrating on Valerie's brain would have to be a lot better that just one lousy minute. I want to make sure I establish firm and complete contact with the amazing brain of Valerie Morrison.

Stay tuned for an update on what Valerie reveals to me as I begin my journey towards financial and spiritual fulfillment.