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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 7, 1978)
Psychic healer tries to get in touch By RICHARD WIENS Of the Emerald Laeh Maggie Garfield sits in a patch of sunny earth behind the Eugene Center for Personal Growth and speaks of cosmic things. Garfield is a psychic healer, teacher and mother of two psychic daughters. "Psychic chords", the seven "chakras” of the body, “Knowledge of the future” and “past life exploration” are more than just terms to Garfield. To her, they are reality. "Psychic work used to be thought of as this weird thing, but it’s something every body can do,” says Garfield. But “If you’re too cosmic, way out there, you can’t keep yourself together on the material plane — you’re not of this planet,” she says. “If you’re so earthy that you’re ultra-materialistic, then you have no cosmic sense of what you’re here for, no sense of how you’re creating havoc in worlds beyond your imagination. “I’m looking for balance, ” Garfield says. “I look at what people are over emphasizing and what needs to be em phasized instead.” She works with small groups of students and individual clients at the growth center, 1997 Garden St., as well as in other parts of Oregon, Washington and California. While she teaches a host of mystical techniques, she concentrates on "psychic healing” with clients. "Most everyone comes because of per sonal problems,” Garfield says. "If neces sary, I refer them to physicians. But some people don’t need a doctor, because what’s going on in them isn’t expressed in a true physical ailment. They’re just out-of-sorts.” Garfield says she touches into their aura to see what’s going on. “I talk opt the plays that they’ve written for themselves and say Look, there are alternatives to this script.’ “A lot of people float around with holes in their aura. They don’t keep their aura clean, so they take on a lot of other people's junk.” Suddenly, the listener turns participant as Garfield rises to inspect the aura. “You’re right half is good, but there’s a hole in your upper left side,” she says, running her hands over an invisible force field. The psychic “rebuilds” the punctured Photo by Steve Sober Touching a person’s aura to feel psychic energy is just one phase of psychic healer Laeh Maggie Garfield's work. Beginning tonight, she will teach a class which examines trance states, meditation, visualization as well as healing. aura, which contains a hole "only when you're unaware of it." A backache from sit ting on a hard wood floor is gone. She reaches out her hand to touch him; and a hot buzz of energy flows through them. Garfield gained some of her psychic knowledge from an apprenticeship with a Porno Indian Shawoman in California named Essie Parrish. Some of her talent, however, seems to have been inherited. “I was born into a family where the women were wise women. When someone would come by the house and complain about their life situation, my aunt would turn around and say Well, don’t worry, I’ll do something about it.' And I would watch her do something about it. Garfield said her aunt is a visionary foreseer of the future. Garfield also does some fortune telling. “I’ve been into Tarot as a way of telling what’s going to happen next.” Garfield pauses, pulls out a crystal pen dulum and requests that the listener ask a yes-or-no question of it. ‘Uhh, will the sunny weather continue?” She gazes at the crystal dangling from her hand and says “That's a wobbly yes.” Garfield has not always had so much control over her psychic powers. “When I was in my early ’20s, I would go into a room and I would just get filled with the knowledge of what was going on in that room and I would be exhausted by it. I could see a couple holding hands and know they hated each other....I’d see another couple not even talking to each other and I’d know how they loved each other. I could feel it.” One difference between Garfield and the casual observer is that she says she sees “psychic chords which go from one chakra in one person to the same chakra in another person. “Sometimes, in close relationships, peo ple chord each other to the third chakra — the power center — so that one partner has all the power and the other has none,” Gar field says. “The one who has none begins to get certain physical problems from being chorded there, like gall bladder trouble — they can never make a decision. Leah believes in strong family ties, par tially because of her “good, healthy view of reincarnation.” She is the mother of a 15-year-old who has “out-of-body experi ences” and a nine-year old “natural healer.” “The greatest disaster in America right now is the abandonment of the family, be cause those are very long and important psychic ties,” Garfield believes. “We don’t just choose to be born for the heck of it. We choose to be born to a particu lar family for a particular reason. Some times, we've been bom into that family a number of times and we usually know our father and mother very well. Remembering past lives is one of many “techniques" Garfield will teach during a "Psychic Work" class every Tuesday for six weeks from 7 to 9:30 p.m. beginning tonight at the growth center. The class will also cover trance states, meditation, visualization, guided fantasy and grounding (staying centered in your self). In addition, “all the students will have experiences with healing someone not pre sent and someone in the class, and they’ll learn to transfer energy.” Those interested in "Psychic Work" can call 686-0150 or 485-8563. governor nopetui says she doesn t wattle By ANN TRENEMAN Of the Emerald Claiming she is “not a political prostitute” and “answers to no vested interest group,” Emily Ashworth, Coos County Demo crat, is preparing to take firm stands in her upcoming campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomi nation. Ashworth, an unofficial candi date until March 15, says she doesn’t “waffle” on the issues, since “becoming governor of this state is secondary. The important thing is to stand up for my beliefs on the issues.” As part of her “media strategy,” Ashworth says she will file as a candidate on the last possible fil ing date, and then begin cam paigning for the Democratic nomination. Ashworth will open a Portland base next week and start her less-than-$20,000 campaign dur ing which she plans to “bring the issues to the forefront the politi cians never answer.” Ashworth says she was urged to run “by Democrats around the state.” She says she is running “because essentially people are responsible for bad government. People are not willing to become involved.” Ashworth has been involved in politics since 1972 when she chaired the Coos County McGovern organization. Since then she has worked for the cam paigns of Sen. Betty Roberts and the late Sen. Wayne Morse. She attended the Democratic National Convention as a Carter dele gate and is included in the 1977 “Who’s Who, Women in American Politics.” She says, “Straub is inept as gov ernor. He snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. He has dem onstrated a lack of leadership and a non-responsiveness to the Democratic Party platform.” Asked how she feels about large bureaucratic government organizations, she says, “I have a short fuse with bureaucratic bullshit.” She resigned from the Teacher’s Standards and Prac tices Committee, which she was appointed to in 1977, and from the Welfare Reform Board, because of bureaucratic ineptness. “Government should treat you as if you were paying their salaries,” Ashworth elaborates. Ashworth, a life-science teacher at Coos Bay Junior High School, is adamant in her stand against herbicides, adding that “Nobody in the name of profit has the right to poison the drinking water. “If I were governor I’d have a GOOD MORNAY MORNING! Eggs Momay, melted Swiss cheese and mushrooms served in a butter sauce over poached eggs with slices of toast Just one of the many tasteful breakfasts served each morning at Eugene’s finest food Oe Franklin BHd. acme from William's Bakeiy t Ho—: 7:90 AM-11 AM simple solution. Straub says he needs to research the problem. I’d declare a moratorium,” Ashworth opposes nuclear power plants and advocates a building ban on them. She advo cates abortions for welfare women and disapproves of the re cent legislation limiting abortions. She is against field burning and in favor of researching alternate forms of energy. “I guess you could call me the Anti-Anita Bryant candidate,” says Ashworth, adding that she is opposed to discrimination of any kind. She also favors turning the es timated $100,000 surplus tax money back to the people in direct property tax relief. Ashworth knows she has a race on her hands. “I’m a dynamic person and have a lot to say. 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