Life History

Barbara's

In a drunken stupor, choking on his own vomit, Jonathan would die tonight. Jon lay on a bed, retching and gasping for breath, as he neared death in a shabby Seaside Heights New Jersey motel room. A nearby table was strewn with the remnants of the evening's poker game. The sound of rushing water from the shower meant his son was unable to hear him choking and would not be in time to save him.

"Help me, why isn't Barbara here to help me? This is it. She saw me dead, in her dream," he thought. "Oh God, why didn't I listen to her?" His thoughts raced through the events of the last few weeks of his life. "My boat sinking, she'd seen that, too. I didn't listen to that either, even when she screamed at me about signing my own death certificate. She called me a dead man, said it was only a matter of time." As he struggled for his last breath of life on December 20, 1986, he knew, Barbara was right.

Jon and his girlfriend of three years, Barbara Mackey, had argued that night in the motel room. She'd tried to warn him; cried about wanting him to come home with her. She'd even pleaded with his son to make him listen to her. "I feel something terrible is going to happen here," she'd said. Jon blew it off, already too drunk to care, and not about to let his son see him take orders from any woman. He threw the keys to his van at her with a dismissive," Take the keys, bitch." Not endearing last words.

Barbara Mackey told Jon of so many dreams, he'd become desensitized to what he perceived as ramblings. There was one night in particular, a few days before his death, when he should have listened. Barbara woke them both, crying out his name, tears streaming down her face. She told Jon about her dream, somehow she knew it was a warning. Jon liked to take risks, and to drink, both to excess. Her dream was of a call, one from the hospital in the middle of the night, silent nurses and a doctor motioning for her to come in and leading her to a gurney covered with a white sheet. "We're sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Mackey," they said, "Jonathan Smith died tonight." Barbara pulls back the sheet and Jon's face is staring back at her, discolored and cold as granite.

Weeks after her forty-second birthday, the traumatic nightmare of the death of her boyfriend, Jonathan Smith, came to pass, just like the dream. Five days before Christmas, Barbara was called to the hospital to identify Jon's body. At the funeral, Jon's son told her, "You were right. I'll have to live with the guilt of my father's death for the rest of my life." Jon's death was to alter Barbara's life forever. It was the catalyst that brought her to her avocation and destiny; projecting her into the psychic world. Beyond consolation and reasoning, Barbara looked for answers she desperately needed. Why did she have the dream and how could it have come true? Here begins her journey of realization.

This is the story of the life of a professional psychic and clairvoyant, Barbara Mackey. She has used her extraordinary gifts to help over 10,000 people. Ms. Mackey's path has been one of awakening. The true affects of these accounts, on both her and her clients, can be substantiated. Experiencing psychic visions since the age of four, Barbara never knew of her gift of prophecy until many years later. Seen as an unusual, pensive child, and later as an eccentric adult, uninvited thoughts came to her, night and day. They were always mysterious, disjointed, and unsettling. Barbara's nights were that of fitful and uneven sleep, filled with dreams of people and events, both strange and familiar.

Desperate to be put in touch with John, just weeks after his death, Barbara goes to a psychic retreat in Upstate New York with Edith Cantor, (click here to read about Edith) a friend, tea leaf reader, and psychic. Psychics at the retreat repeatedly told Barbara that she, too, was clairvoyant and put her in touch with Helen Williams, a spiritualist. (click here to read about Helen). Helen and Edith were to be Barbara's mentors over the next ten years. From them, through months of sessions together, she learned how to tap into and use her psychic abilities. Most invaluable and powerful of all was straight psychic; the ability to look at a person and read past, present, and future; body, mind, and spirit. Helen and Edith taught Barbara to use the gifts she'd been born to and, with the learning of each lesson; she could see that life, as she had known it, would never be the same.

It was all beginning to make sense to her. Barbara now realized experiences she'd had as a child were truly psychic experiences. She, at the age of four, had known her mother was in danger, seconds before a neighbor suddenly flew into an unprovoked, senseless fit of rage and beat her mother to near death. At the age of 12, Barbara knew
it was her brother, severely injured, being carried in the out-of-town ambulance that pulled ahead of the car she was traveling in. As a teenager, sunbathing on the beach, Barbara spotted a small aircraft flying overhead and thought, "That plane is going to crash." Moments later it did, and the bodies, she had just seen in her mind's eye, were floating the in waters of the bay. Local papers carried the tragic story of the crash.

There were many times such as these throughout Barbara's life. Incidents she had discounted as merely happenstance. Married at the age of 17, and pregnant with her first child, she had an ominous feeling that she and her baby would die during childbirth and expressed this to her then husband, Gregg. Moments after Barbara, suffering from kidney failure, gave birth to their son, William, she was given last rites. Her newborn son, blue and not breathing, was immediately baptized. Miraculously, and against all odds, they both survived the night.

Shortly after the birth of her second child, Timothy, Barbara's mother-in-law, Helen, was in the hospital for heart surgery. Family and friends, not concerned about her recovery, left Helen's hospital room on the eve of her surgery saying "Good night". Barbara left saying "Good bye". Even the doctors were hopeful, but Barbara sensed she would not see Helen again. The next morning, Barbara awoke saddened, certain she would hear that Helen had not survived, and there would be a funeral. While taking a black dress from her closet, Barbara thought, "This is what I will wear to the wake". Just then, the phone rang, it was her husband, and he was crying. "My mother died. No one expected this. Did you Barbara?" Not answering him, she thought to herself, somehow her thoughts had been so powerful, she had willed this.

Barbara's marriage suffered through her husband Greg’s bouts with manic depression fueled by his alcoholism, she attempted to escape his distorted reality by cultivating her own outside interests in local politics and theatre. She began delving into astrology and using the Ouija board; doing novice readings for her neighbors. Her innocent beginnings were surprisingly accurate; she was living the life of a clairvoyant and didn't know the magnitude of her gifts. The birth of their third child, Brian, triggered a severe depression with suppressed flashbacks to her abusive childhood. Throughout these trials, Barbara was a survivor. Somehow she knew her suffering was for a reason; Reasons that would slowly be revealed to her through her prophetic dreams and clairvoyant experiences. She and Greg eventually divorced in 1984, ending a tumultuous 22-year marriage. Soon after, she met the love of her life, Jon. The man who she now realizes died in order for her to live and fulfill her destiny. Following are a few accounts of the many experiences Barbara has had in her years as a psychic.

Hired to do readings at Steinbach's employee Christmas party in Brick, NJ, Barbara encounters a friend from her old neighborhood. Twenty-five years earlier, while their sons were growing up, she had counseled her. The Cuban woman, Aleda, had been distraught over the discrimination her son, then five years old, was experiencing in the neighborhood and at school. Barbara told her then not to worry because one day her son would be a famous lawyer and judge living in Washington, D.C. and own his own plane. That one day, her son's bullies would eat their unkind words. Seeing Barbara again, after so many years, Aleda was overcome with emotion. She ran over to her, and threw her arms around her in a sincere hug. "Barbara, everything you said about my son came to be. He's so successful and happy. You saw it all before it happened. I'm so glad you're doing psychic work. That's what you're meant to do. God gave you the gift."

A channeling session led Barbara to tell a heavy-hearted 20-year old woman that Katharine was coming through and repeating "it wasn't your fault". As she spoke, Barbara's heart pounded and felt as though it would leap from her chest; it seemed as though she were being smothered. Barbara's words brought the woman to tears. She later explained that Katharine was her younger sister. When they were small children, her sister crawled over to a washbasin, stuck her head into the mere inches of water it held, and drowned. Through their despair, her parents had hysterically screamed at her. "How could you let your sister drown?" Thinking she was to blame for her sister's death, she'd carried this guilt with her since. Barbara made contact for her, her tears were borne of release, finally relieved of a terrible burden she'd unjustly carried for far too long.

A woman came to Barbara after consulting many doctors about her young son. Her son's teachers had spoken to her about what they saw as attention deficit disorder and the doctor's could not diagnose his condition. During the reading, Barbara asked if any of the doctors had looked into a condition called petit mal, a form of epilepsy. This could cause him to have unnoticeable seizures, easily mistaken for ADD. Weeks later, the grateful woman called Barbara to thank her for her insightful accuracy. Following Barbara's advice, her son was tested. The disorder was confirmed by doctors, and the young boy was finally improving.

While doing a reading for Linda, a woman she'd seen many times before, Barbara saw her suffer a critical accident while riding a horse. She warned her to be careful. Linda said she must be looking at the past; she'd been hurt while riding last summer. Barbara told her no, it was in the future. Linda dismissed Barbara's warning. Barbara repeated, emphatically, "No, this is in the future and you could be killed that way". Two days later, there was a call from a mutual friend. Linda had fallen from a horse, was in the hospital, and on life support. Barbara sped over to the hospital, knowing all the while there was nothing she could do to help Linda now, the damage had been done. Linda died the next day.

Linda's death sent Barbara running to her mentor, Helen. In tears, she felt as though there was something she should have done, some way she could have prevented Linda's death. Feeling she had failed Linda had shaken her faith to the core of her being. Helen reassured Barbara by reminding her that she cannot take the place of God. All that she could do is tell people what she saw. Everyone's choices were their own to make. An individual's free will would always eclipse any spoken word.

Late one night, Barbara's phone rang. It was a nurse, from a local hospital, calling at the request of a patient named Lynn. In desperation, Lynn, a client of Barbara's, had asked her nurse to call. She had been hospitalized for weeks, unresponsive to the treatment her doctors had been administering for an unknown virus. Lynn remained dehydrated, with a high fever, and close to death. Barbara was given the phone number for Lynn's room. Her call was answered by Lynn, pleading for her help. "Barbara, what's wrong with me, why aren't I getting any better?" Barbara's immediate response was that Lynn had food poisoning, not the virus doctors had thought. The next morning, Lynn requested more lab tests. They revealed salmonella poisoning. Weeks earlier, Lynn had eaten a tofu pie prepared with contaminated eggs. With the correct diagnosis, Lynn's doctors began new treatment and she rallied. Continued treatment for a virus would have proved fatal.

Even the rich and famous will admit to knowing that money can't solve everything. Many have sought out Barbara's expertise and guidance. One in particular, a well known Wall Street broker, riding high on his fortunes and constant media attention, consulted Barbara about an upcoming lawsuit he'd felt was inconsequential. While in his NYC office for the reading, Barbara looked around and offhandedly said, "Shawn, you won't have this office in a year. You will be living in another state and your shore house on the water will no longer be there. I feel the walls are closing in on you and your lawsuit is not so insignificant. They are going to get you this time." He gave her a cynical smile and replied, "Oh, really. They've been after me for 25 years. Where am I going?" Her answer, "You'll be living in another state, and your life, after this year, will never be the same". It all came to pass. Within a year, Shawn was brought to trial and the government confiscated all of his material possessions. His offices were closed, his properties taken, and he now lives in another state. The new owner of his prized shore home leveled it upon taking possession to build another in its place. This man, once known for his ruthless business acumen, had fallen from grace, just as Barbara had told him he would.

Barbara has a considerable history with the owner and staff at a prestigious, albeit discriminatory, health club. One day, as the owner sat in her office, her back to the club's pool area, Barbara began to do a reading for her. Eerily, behind the woman, Barbara saw the figure of a black teenage girl. She asked the owner, "Have you hired a black girl recently?" "No. Why do you ask?" "Well, I see a black girl standing behind you. That's unusual. I've never seen an African American here", Barbara said. As the day went on, Barbara did reading for others on the club's staff. Over and over the teenage girl appeared as a tragic figure at the club. This recurring vision proved to be the foretelling of what would be a fatal accident in the club's Jacuzzi a year later. A 17 year old black girl, at the club for an after-prom party, lost her life in the Jacuzzi when she was pulled down by the drain's vacuum, unable to free herself, and drowned. The club's staff was horrified and later called Barbara, remembering her visions a year earlier. The accident made national headlines and is still the subject of court proceedings.

Time and time again, Barbara has been able to help individuals with her gifts. Many have been in desperate need of guidance; others have asked her to help them find solace through her channeling abilities and reach those who have passed. Being able to read the body is an extraordinary talent of few psychics. Barbara has repeatedly been able to accurately diagnose illnesses that have puzzled doctors. Her medical insights are always corroborated with her client's physicians. The experiences recounted can be confirmed; either by personal reference, articles in newspapers, or recordings derived from radio or television appearances.

Early in 2000, Barbara's travels brought her to the Galveston, Texas area. While there, she was able to spend the day with her long-estranged cousins. She learned from them the real reasons for her Hungarian grandmother's abrupt move from there, in the 1900's with her husband and young children, to Garwood, NJ. She, too, had psychic abilities and had brought emotional and physical healing to others. Though many in her Texas community had sought her counsel, while hidden away in private, in public they would join others who thought her practices taboo, denouncing her. Barbara's father was old enough to remember the cruel words, ridicule, and prejudices they suffered, and chose to keep his mother's gift a secret, just as those who had accepted her help had done. Knowing of her heritage was an affirmation for Barbara, but there was sadness, too. Seventy years later she is still dealing with the same prejudices that had plagued her grandmother as she tried to pursue her life's destiny. There are still those who seek help and counsel but want to keep Barbara hidden away, as though ashamed of the enlightenment she has facilitated.

Over the years, Barbara Mackey's personal relationships, some common and many unorthodox, have added to her insights. She has had her share of triumphs and struggles, illnesses and blessings. All, without any regrets, have added spice and humor to her outlook. Barbara is convinced her life has not been an easy one because she has her own life lessons to learn, and needs to "walk the walk, to talk the talk". Through it all, laughter has been Barbara's favorite, and best-wielded, survival tool. Barbara has much to share with many, and will retell it with humor and the purist of intentions.