A psychic to the stars comes to Canada

Char Margolis, psychic intuitive, only consults with clients twice a year, tops. She doesn’t want them to become too dependent. For most people, this is likely a blessing: Margolis charges US$600 for a 45-minute phone reading, US$825 for an in-person consultation.

In-the-flesh appointments will soon become more feasible for Canadians. After a decade residing in the Netherlands—where the American psychic requires bodyguards to fend off adoring fans when she tapes her top-rated TV show—she now “feels” in her “gut” that “the whole Canadian energy is special,” she says by phone from her second home in Michigan. She adds that her friend, psychic medium and television personality John Edward, has confirmed that she is “supposed to” spend more time here. So this week, she is coming to Toronto to “read” a dozen top movers and shakers, plus some lesser-knowns.

It won’t be her first visit. Margolis actually got her start in Canada on The Dini Petty Show in the late 1980s, where she was a guest several times, and also guested on Camilla Scott’s and Vicki Gabereau’s shows in their heyday.

However, Canadian TV celebrities are small potatoes for Margolis (though she “feels I should be on a Canadian show in the very near future”). She’s known Larry King “for years.” And a decade ago, she divined—before an audience, on Live with Regis—that Kelly Ripa was pregnant. “I haven’t told my boss yet!” Ripa laughed.

“I’ve read for royalty, where I’ve had to sign confidentiality agreements a zillion miles long,” says Margolis. “I’ve read for the most famous presidents of networks. I’ve literally read for the most powerful people in the world.” When Miles Davis was dying in 1991, he called Margolis before calling the ambulance. “He was scared and wanted to know who was waiting for him. I connected him to his loved ones on the other side.”

Davis wasn’t unusual, she says. Many people want a preview of the afterlife from loved ones who’ve already “crossed over. They want to know if they suffered when they died and are at peace on the other side.”

Most clients hear about her through word of mouth; some are even referred by their parents. “If they trust me with their kids? That’s the biggest compliment,” reports the psychic, who insists she cares “just as much about the housewives who call” as she does about the bigwigs.

Which is good, because as part of our interview, she is going to “read” me. I’m not allowed to talk or ask any questions during the reading, which begins with a “prayer protection” that includes phrases about her “pure intention” of “spreading love and healing life on Earth and beyond.”
“I do it just to be safe,” she explains, then the reading begins. It features uncomfortably long, long pauses as she “reads” my “energy” over the phone and figures out who in the great beyond is keeping an eye on me. (She once joked that she is the “most affordable long-distance carrier to the other side.”)

Within three minutes, I’m tearing up. She knows the names of my grandparents (all dead) and tells me they want the best for me. She also knows the name of my ex and pinpoints his personality to a T. She rattles off our daughter’s first and last names (okay, she was off by one letter).

Throughout, I’m silent, thinking, “So? Their names can be found on the Internet. But then again, my grandparents’ names cannot.”

Then Margolis comes up with the exact name of a man I just started dating and tells me she sees me skiing with him in the near future. “He’s going to talk you into it,” she says. I roll my eyes. I hate cold weather and don’t ski. Yet, later that night, the guy asks if I would be interested in going to?.?.?.?Vermont?.?.?.?to ski.

How she could possibly know that—or that I’ll be “fine” after a heart procedure I’m having next month, which I’ve discussed only with my parents?

“I feel very blessed to be able to do what I can do,” she says, serenely. But she has to get off the phone. She has a reading with someone in London. Royalty, perhaps? She won’t say, and I’m no psychic. But after talking to Margolis, I can no longer say I’m not a believer.