Michele Knight makes a nonsense of time: she glimpses the future for a living. UK celebs (and the anonymice!) can't get enough of her Tarot readings and astrology, and her psychic brand bestrides just about all media but Hollywood feature movies. Russell Grant, she's comin' at ya! Madame Arcati probed the queen of sixth sense cool...
Michele Knight, guru to the celebs! You're everywhere! Always on the telly - you're the new astrologer on ITV1's This Morning, I hear - you're on Twitter, MySpace. You're on My Spirit Radio - you've even got your own psychic dating site Psychic Knight and website with a superstore range of psychic services. Open a magazine, there you are. Just how rich are you? How many houses have you got? Is your pension sorted?
“How very direct and straight to the point! I’m rich with abundance, but then I’ve always felt like that, even when I was living in a squat. My son remembers our early days when we would have to hide when the electricity man came and me diving down the back of the sofa to see if I could find any loose change to buy him an ice cream, but I’ve never felt any sense of lack. I’ve never felt poor, even when I probably was. I really think it’s important not to confuse success and happiness with money. And no, I don’t have any plans for retirement whatsoever. I couldn’t imagine not working. I love what I do.”
Which one public prediction are you most proud of? - the one that beyond any doubt might impress a smart-arse secular, literary intellectual who thinks they know it all - y'know a Francis Wheen or Christopher Hitchens type (or if we're slumming it, non-literary division, Derren Brown).
I read your rather harrowing autobio Touched By Evil - mother Italian (mine too), father an English soldier (ditto). You were often abused, the person who helped you get you through these experiences was a spirit guide called Lucy. Could you see her? Did she have an independent, sentient, personality? How do you know she wasn't some sort of projection? Why didn't she take you out of harm's way?
“I felt and heard Lucy. She was very much her own being. Remember that she was with me throughout my very early life and we don’t tend to think about things in such sophisticated terms as projections when we’re children. I wouldn’t have known what a projection was! I just took it as being my normal/abnormal life.
“Lucy did try to take care of me and guide me, but we all have to go through our own learning experiences. She couldn’t take me out of harm’s way. It was down to me to find my own way out. It’s very easy to think that being psychic somehow gives you diplomatic immunity or acts as a barrier between you and the ups and downs of life. It doesn’t. It’s quite possible to be psychic and too stubborn to listen to good advice, as I was when Lucy was around!”
Is there life after death without a shadow of doubt in your mind? Is the afterlife as real to you as ... well, Ivana Trump?
“I have no shadow of a doubt that there is life after death, but you sort of accept that and then get on with your life here. There’s far too much to do now. I also have known who I was in a past life from the age of 10 and had the most bizarre 'proof' later on in life and no I'm not going to tell you! I’ve caught Ivana Trump on Celebrity Big Brother and what a delicious cougar too, so I’m sure she exists!”
You're often filmed giving readings to the slebbies - do politicians, royalty and blue chip company bosses consult you? The Windsors love their seers ....
“I might have read for someone you’re having dinner with tomorrow night, but I couldn’t possibly say. I’m never even tempted to air-kiss and tell. Just call me Heidi Fleiss! Seriously though, I’m aware that we live in a celebrity culture, and there’s a lot of kudos to be gained for dropping any household names you’ve read for, but I won’t do that. I’d rather build my reputation by providing an exceptional service to everyone. Once you break that trust by talking out of turn about who you’ve read for and what you saw, you’ve had it. Quite rightly, too. Many people from all walks of life have been kind enough to recommend me. I’d rather let them do the talking.”
I couldn't believe you have a son in his mid-20s. You look so young! Now you're married to a woman. Was the transition from cock-cunting to cunt-cunting an effortless segue? Did it seem the most natural thing in the world or did you resist the inevitable for a while?
“I think love is the most natural thing in the world. I’ve never resisted it and I don’t make rules about what it should look like. I believe that we are all a shard of God, unique in our expression of divine creative potential, here to manifest through the process of cocreation and contrast our soul’s desire to know itself and elevate the whole. If I could do one thing to make the entire Western world happier tomorrow, it would be to just allow people to find out for themselves what makes them truly happy without having to call it anything. And yes, falling in love with my breathtakingly gorgeous wife was effortless.”
I read somewhere that you once read for a 75-year-old woman and you could see she'd had 3 lovers in her life. Can you tell how many Madame Arcati has saddled up beneath her faux Queen Anne quilt? Alternatively, how does the information reach you - by impressions? pictures? words?
“I think you’re very brave to put your reputation on the line like this. Very few of us could really stand up to that kind of public scrutiny. Too many lovers and you’re promiscuous, too few and you’re inadequate. Thankfully, I’m more broadminded than that, but I am shocked to hear you sleep under a faux Queen Anne quilt. What’s wrong with a nice bit of Egyptian cotton?
“I actually can’t describe how I know things. It’s like, if someone asked you to describe how you know what your name is, you couldn’t. You just know it. When I’m doing readings, I use Tarot cards, or I can look at someone’s astrological chart, but that’s just the starting place. They are tools to focus my intention, and then things just come.”
The obvious thing to say about you is you're turning out to be the next Russell Grant. Do you want that? I like Russell but his horoscopes can be a bit harsh - not for me to suggest that he wants the reader to consult his psychic phonelines for some reassurance after such a battering. How would you characterise your approach?
“I think life is what you make of what comes your way. So yes, the planets can have an influence on what’s going on around us, or we may be fated to meet certain experiences along our path, but we write the story. I have a tendency to bang on about many things, but I believe that tools such as astrology or Tarot cards can be amazingly useful to look at what’s going on, and what’s likely to happen if we stick with a particular course of action, but I think that part of the reason we’re here is to wake up to our own power and potential. If I’d gone through my life being scared or thinking that there was nothing I could do at certain points, I literally wouldn’t be here now. I want to help people to make informed choices and make them feel uplifted so that they can deal with the challenges that we all face and so that they can create their own future.”
Do the Derren Browns and James Randis annoy you with their claims that all divination is a fraud? Orson Welles shared their view too, but then admitted he was so good at pretending to be a medium he had to stop because what he said was true!
“I could hardly object to people having the right to hold an opinion or express a view. I think Derren Brown is fascinating, an absolute genius. He’s a really interesting person to watch, actually. He is so skilled and the effects he can produce are absolutely mind-blowing. I believe that he describes what he does as mentalism. If you reduce what he does to a set of skills, that would suggest that every single person has the ability to do what he does, and I’m not sure that’s true. I couldn’t. But I also can’t help wondering if he’s using abilities that even he doesn’t realise he’s got.
"I know the legacy of empiricism means that we’ve acquired a drive to reduce everything in this world to concrete measurables, where we can explain everything within a neat loop of cause and effect, but if you fall into that model too far you can limit yourself. Throughout history and across many indigenous cultures today, Shamen of all kinds have understood and used the power of a belief in magic and I encourage people to reclaim that power.
"What’s wrong with life being magical? All children believe in magic, and look at the joy and wonder it gives them. Most of us have it kicked out of us as we grow older. I think when we lose our ability to see the miracles that surround us every day we are robbed of something very precious. The very fact that we are here is a miracle of creation. I never stopped believing in magic. If you believe in magic, you’ll see magic everywhere, and then magic will happen.”
And finally, my sweet, can you answer a question out of the blue without cards or charts - for instance, will William really marry Kate? I'm not so sure. The things I've heard about William ...
“I’ve never met him, but I think it’s worth considering that it’s easy to see him as being a privileged young man when we can never understand the pressures he’s under. I think also that, given what happened to his parents’ marriage, he is being very wise in waiting until he’s absolutely sure that he is ready to make any commitment that is strong enough to withstand the inevitable media furore, speculation and rumour it would generate. When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, I think they were quite bewildered at the absolute frenzy of public interest and hoped that it would die down over time. It didn’t. We can’t know what effect that had on them as individuals or as a couple. Most of us are fortunate enough to live our lives outside of the enormous level of scrutiny that falls on every action William does or doesn’t take.
"I think it’s interesting that you ask if William will marry Kate. Perhaps she has her own ideas about the issue. I did predict they would get engaged so we'll see!”
Michele Knight! Thank you so much for your time. For some reason I foresee yet more success for you in ... Russia.
“How exciting! I quite enjoy travelling and I hear St. Petersburg is the place to visit at the moment. Marvellous architecture! Thank you too. It’s been a pleasure.”
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