In this truly one-of-a-kind book, New Age rabble rouser Frederick Woodruff pulls back the curtain and gives us a funny, irreverent, and spellbinding peek at one of America's favorite pastimes: consultation with telephone psychics. In over twenty fast chapters Woodruff zig zags from comedy to pathos as he recounts his audial adventures with a wild cross section of Americans--and their larger than life fantasies and dilemmas. Who calls psychics? Who answers the calls? What does our culture's fascination with magic and divination symbolize? Does astrology really work? And how did Mr. Woodruff transmogrify from a fourteen-year-old teenage pagan into one of America's most talked to and beleaguered psychics? It's all here, buzzing and humming with the overamped frequency of a short-circuiting fiber optic cable. Includes "How To Call a Telephone Psychic and Not Go Broke."
My father was a scientist and my mother was a musician. Being a Cancer, I felt a stronger alignment with my mom. Fortunately I did bring along the mental skills I inherited from my dad, a vigor for study and a desire to question and probe. Combined, my gene pool gave rise to a mystical impulse. Or an impulsive mystic. Something like that.
My mom and grandmother both 'consulted' astrology magazines regularly. And so I grew up with those little Dell pocketbook Sun Sign books scattered around the house. I started collecting them like baseball cards. I found astrology mesmerizing -- psychology as typology made perfect sense to me. Put people into a large group and immediately one experiences the phenomenon of 'types.' Here was a way to possibly understand behavior, to weave one's way forward -- and out -- by having a sort of inner-knowledge, an owner's manual for the human condition. This appealed to my persistent, slightly wary Moon in Scorpio.
I also appreciated how astrology placed the world within a larger framework, a more interconnected system, the all-inclusive matrix of the universe. This was my first sensing of a meaning to life, or at least a path towards meaning.
I spent most of my free time reading books on horoscopes, magic and the Tarot and finally, while in junior high, I made the dogged effort to write to as many astrologers in California as I could find, seeing which, if any would take me as a student. I lucked out with my teachers Ivy Goldstein Jacobson and Margaret Latvala, and worked with them through my high school years.
Out of high school I became a member of Llewellyn George's Educational Astrology organization in Los Angeles. I helped write, edit and publish the group's quarterly newsletters, overseen by Shirley Stringer and Robert Jansky. Bob went on to write many excellent books on the relationship between astrology and health and the impact and importance of eclipses. He was a great mentor, too.
I eventually moved to Honolulu Hawaii and began working with clients and teaching astrology. I lived in Hawaii for close to twenty years.
Also in Hawaii, I encountered the Fourth Way teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and studied his cosmology in earnest. Lacking a strong bond with my father, Gurdjieff's teachings became a sort of ad hoc stand in for me.
To this day I consider Gurdjieff my "second father," a testament to his radiant, near-nuclear soul force (and ability to transcend time). Gurdjieff's Capricorinian emphasis on developing will, the 'ability to do,' and a solid, grounded connection to one's body seemed like concepts from another planet to a free-flowing, Sun in the 12th, Mars in Pisces native like me.
Not long after my Saturn return, I realized that I needed to find an actual Work school, to align myself with like-mined souls who, with a teacher's assistance, could awaken, sustain attention and presence. Could turn knowledge into understanding. Qualities that are impossible to develop by studying books and concepts. Gurdjieff impressed this point often: "Change depends on you, and it will not come about through study. You can know everything and yet remain where you are. It is like a man who knows all about money and the laws of banking, but has no money of his own in the bank. What does all his knowledge do for him?"
In 1988 I joined Hameed Ali's Ridhwan School, a spiritual Work school that involves Fourth Way principals, eastern philosophy, meditation practice and insights gleaned from modern depth psychology. I have been a student of the school's Diamond Approach group for 20 years. When people ask me about working with Gurdjieff's system I recommend Hameed's school because the Diamond Approach is a dynamic, living teaching, the Logos of which is continually developing and unfolding in our time.
Many of Gurdjieff's principals are present within the Diamond Approach, but they are aligned with the insights of psychology -- contemporary perceptions that inform skillful means of working with the personality; modern techniques for understanding the ego, one's essence and the embodiment of True Nature.
I finally settled in Washington and on a whim took a year-long stint working as a telephone psychic.
Yes, the notion was bizarre and so was the job! But I experienced facets of human nature that I'd never have encountered in my private practice back in Hawaii.
The job was so unusual I decided to write a book about my experiences. Secrets of a Telephone Psychic was released in 1998 by Beyond Words Publishing. It's funny and informative and represents a period in my life that was both humbling and enlightening.
I've painted abstract art since 1981. And my last one-man show was in 2005.
Presently I live on Vashon Island, near the water, with a bengal cat named Lili. I publish my own astrology blog at www.astroinquiry.com and have started work on my second book. I continue my professional astrological counseling work with private clients -- both in-person and, you guessed it: over the telephone.
