An interview with Carol Ann Liaros by A. Robert Smith, editor of Venture Inward, July-August 2001.
Q. (Smith) When did you become a professional intuitive?
A. (C. A. Liaros) I discovered I had the skills when I was 29 years old. About two years after that I started as a professional psychic.
Q. How did that happen?
A. I had gone to a psychic for a reading. I'd been to him before and to other psychics. At that time I thought psychic ability was a gift that some people had and the rest of us did not. He told me how psychic I was and that I was going to travel and teach other people how to develop their psychic ability and that I was going to write a book.
I was sitting there being non-psychic and thinking he must be having an "off" day because that didn't fit me. I figured I'd pay him and come back when he had an "on" day. But, either through my body language or his psychic ability, he could see that I wasn't buying this, so he took me over to a woman who was waiting for a reading from him.
He said to the woman that I was psychic and I'd give her a reading. I thought, I'll make up a story about her. So, I told her several things. One of the things I told her was a relationship with her daughter and what it was about. I told her that her husband had died, or left her, three months before this. She said yes to everything I was saying.
After I left, I thought, I hope I never get as gullible as that woman, because in my mind she came all primed for a reading and thought I was a visiting psychic. So, she was programmed to say yes to everything I said. I'd never had a psychic experience before, and so I forgot about it.
Q. What were you doing at that stage of your life?
A. I was raising three children and in the process of a divorce. I was at a party where a woman and I started talking about Edgar Cayce, and about the Cayce books we had read. I told her about my recent experience with the psychic.
She got all excited and said, "Why don't you describe the new place I'm going to move into?" So, I held her watch and I said, "I'm standing on a different level. It must be a split level." She said no. I said it was the door to the bedroom.
No, no, everything was wrong. When I described a faded slip cover on the couch, she said, "I left my husband three months ago. I lived in that split level house on Long Island, and our last argument was about that faded slip cover."
I was stunned because I still believed that it was a gift for people like Edgar Cayce. I thought maybe I overheard her, but I didn't consciously overhear her.
A few days later she appeared at my door with a bag full of watches and rings that belonged to friends of hers who wanted readings. I agreed and said, "Don't say a word until I'm finished."
Q. So, you gave readings for people who weren't there?
A. Right. And I thought, what do I do with this ability - entertain the neighborhood women? If I'm supposed to do anything with it, it's going to have to find me. A few weeks later I saw an ad in the paper that Hugh Lynn Cayce was speaking in Buffalo.
By now I was having daily experiences, such as finding myself out of my body. Some things I didn't understand. So, I decided to go hear Hugh Lynn. After the lecture he graciously agreed to answer questions. I had a list of them. Afterward he invited me to have coffee with him and the board of Rosary Hill College.
We had coffee with Sister Justa Smith, a scientist, who was just beginning her now famous research with healers. Hugh Lynn suggested that she incorporate me into her research.
Q. Was this research something you did from time to time with them?
A. No, I was there every day. I'd hold a sealed envelope with handwriting in it and give readings on it, or whatever I was asked to do. I didn't know I had such a scientific mind. I wasn't trained. They not only registered the percentage of accuracy, they were also interested in what was going on inside me.
They asked if I had visions of any kind. So I began analyzing what was going on inside me. I'd think, how did I do that? I would tell them how they could see auras, or whatever it was. It became clear to me that we all have intuition, ESP, psychic ability.
My interest, right from the beginning, was the practical application of intuition. So I taught a class to nurses and doctors in Buffalo area hospitals.
Q. What did you teach them?
A. A 12-week course entitled, "Parapsychology and Medicine." One section covered research in parapsychology as it related to the health field, another introduced them to the techniques of how to experience energy, how to do mind traveling.
Q. By mind traveling, explain what you wanted them to be able to do.
A. Today they call it remote viewing.
Q. Why would you teach them that?
A. Because, as one doctor reported, when he was at home he wanted to check in on his patients, and he would use mind traveling or remote viewing to check in on them.
He saw that one woman was in distress, so he called the hospital and told the nurse to check on her, and then went to the hospital. So, they could check in on their patients even when they weren't there. They saw it as a very practical tool.
Q. You were convinced that this was something people could learn?
A. Yes.
Q. I've heard psychics say this isn't something you can teach people, that psychic ability is a gift. But you don't believe that?
A. No. I have proof that that isn't so.
Q. But, who taught you?
A. Nobody.
Q. So, it was a gift.
A. Well, I think it's a gift we all have. Here's what I think got me in touch with mine I was going through a divorce, I had a child die, I ended up with cancer. All that happened in a short period of time.
I was in such emotional pain that I couldn't even go outside. I wore sunglasses all the time. I couldn't stand to look at people who might be in pain, too. So I withdrew. I remember reaching a point of depression where I didn't feel anything. That was worse than the pain - this feeling of nothingness.
If somebody had told me I'd win the lottery tomorrow or I would die tomorrow, I would have said OK. I'd have had no emotional reaction. That was awful. I reached a point where I wanted to commit suicide.
I remember sitting at my kitchen table and thinking, I'm having a nervous breakdown. I'm going to commit suicide. Lord, you have got to do something to pull me out of this. I knew that if I decided to commit suicide I would do it with no feeling.
Next morning I was standing at my kitchen sink when a woman I'd known for four years came in my back door. She stopped in every day. I turned around and was shocked because it was like suddenly the "mask" that she wore was gone. I could see who she really was.
Q. What did that reveal to you?
A. When I looked at her I suddenly realized how much pain she was in, emotionally, and things like that. So, I think it was going down to the depths of despair that got me in contact with my psychic ability.
Q. What were you doing for a living then?
A. I sold real estate. But I always felt like there was something else I was supposed to do. Something was missing, something the universe wanted me to do.
Q. You found your mission in life.
A. Exactly. And Hugh Lynn was the one who pointed me in that direction. A special man.
Q. That's right. You mention working with psychometry. How does that work?
A. I hold an object that belongs to someone, that no one else has worn, and somehow that tunes me into them. In the research at the college I was tested in the precognition experiment.
There were about 150 people in a setup. They would write down three questions that they wanted me to answer about the future, something that would reasonably happen in the next six months or so. Like, will sell my house by March 1st?
But, they had to be asked so that I could answer them with a yes or no. I was either right or wrong. Meanwhile, each person would take another sheet of paper, and give their anticipated answer.
Now, logically they should be able to answer those questions better than I. We did this to see if I was simply reading their minds. Or, was I doing real precognition? Or did the question lend itself to the answer by the very way you asked it?
It became clear it wasn't telepathy because most of the time my answers did not agree with theirs And then, as people reported in over the next six to eight months, it became clear that precognition was what I was experiencing. I was told that I was 93 to 97 percent accurate rate in predicting the future in this experiment.
Q. How do you explain what happens? Do you get impressions that are coming from this object about people?
A. My perception of it is that you know everything that going to happen to you. Some things you plan consciously but most of the things that are going to happen to you a planned in your unconscious as well as at your super-conscious level.
Either you decided it before you were born, and you set that up for yourself, or you decided it now. Some people are accident-prone. They're always having accidents because they set up the accident. Even psychologists know that.
I think I'm simply reading your soul's pattern, or reading your energy field. All I'm doing is saying to the person, "Here's what you've chosen for yourself. How do you like it?" That's my perception.
Q. In psychometry, what kind of objects work for you?
A. Anything. At the college they experimented with a whole variety to see if the object would matter - watches, rings, business cards, urine samples in a test tube, blood samples on pieces of blotter paper.
Q. Do you work with the police?
A. Yes. I also organized the Intuitive Task Force, a group of psychics that I've pulled together to find missing people.
Q. Have you found any?
A. Yes. In fact, we recently worked with a detective on a case of a missing man in Norfolk who disappeared some time ago. We just admitted six new people to the task force around the country. One reason we have so many is that these people are very busy.
Not everyone can work on every case. No one in the task force gets paid. In fact, they pay their own transportation, their own meals, and their own hotels. We meet three times a year.
Q. What's the value of having several psychics?
A. Each one has their specialty. Some are good at map dowsing. Some are good at precognition. Some are good at being aware of what happened to the victim and describing the surroundings. So, by pooling the results we can get more information.
Q. Is that very effective?
A. It's really working.
Q. Do you do much police work?
A. It's not an activity that I really seek out or really enjoy doing. I consider it more as a service because I find it very difficult. A friend of mine's grandmother owned a little grocery store in Pennsylvania. She was closing the grocery store and they found her dead the next day.
She'd been attacked and robbed. They wanted to know who did it. So I concentrated on who did it and I described the two men I saw who had robbed and murdered her. Sometimes I get initials, or I'll try to get how many letters they have in their first name.
Q. They were able to apprehend them?
A. They had the descriptions and apparently these were their two suspects and they had enough evidence to arrest them.
Q. Were they already in custody?
A. No, they weren't in custody when I did that reading.
Q. Do the police welcome your help?
A. In the beginning we didn't have any police contacts. So, quite often the information we gave would go into a deep, dark hole because we didn't get any feedback.
And then maybe later they'd say, "Oh yeah, well the police did find so and so, et cetera." Now, we're in contact with three detectives who are willing to have us work on cases.
Q. Do you work with businesses?
A. Oh, yes. I was in a consulting firm with two partners, from 1994 until I retired from that company two years ago. We worked with Fortune 500 corporations. I would give readings on acquisitions they were doing and personnel problems and all the questions that companies have.
Then we would teach them intuition. But, many times we would have to change the wording because they were concerned. We found that it was "against their religion." And so, we changed the wording. But, we were still teaching them spiritual, intuitive things.
Q. In other words, it had to be described in a politically correct way?
A. Perfect wording. I retired from that because I found that I had to hide too much of who I was. Some of the executives knew I was a psychic. But, otherwise, I had to be very careful of who I was talking to and what I said.
I wanted to get back into the arena where I could just say this is who I am, and this is what I do. This is where my heart is.
Q. In private readings for individuals, what do you specialize in?
A. Precognition.
Q. That means you can see things that are going to happen in the future?
A. Sometimes I'll get things about people's past, as it links to something in the future.
Q. How do you know what's going to happen?
A. I think it's like the collective unconscious. In other words, it's all out there. Let's say you invest in the stock market. Someone tells you about a stock and it lights up the room.
And you say, "Whatever this is I want 1,000 shares of it." I think it's because all that information is out there. You're picking up the trends.
Q. I was talking to a man the other day who uses his intuitive ability in picking stocks. He interprets his dreams, primarily. He said he's been dreaming a lot about bears lately. So it's been a bear market for sure. And I thought, investing has to be based on intuition. There's just no way you can know enough to make informed decisions.
A. Exactly. Because everything is changing too rapidly. What was done in the past does not mean what's going to happen in the future.
Q. Are you getting rich on the market with your intuition?
A. I do very well. In fact, in my company, I was the one who invested our moneys. People said, "Why don't you quit what you're doing and do the stock market and get rich?" I like money. I like nice things.
But money isn't what motivates me. I want enough to be able to have the freedom to do what I want to do, which is to serve others. At my age that's it. My children are grown. I serve others. I've got enough money so I don't have to worry about it.
Q. I've heard that you work with the blind. What do you do with the blind?
A. In 1973 I started "Project: Blind Awareness" to teach the blind to be more mobile, more self-reliant. One technique we teach is mind traveling. It uses both the imagination and psychic senses, and it helps the blind gain confidence that they can travel alone to places they haven't visited before.
Q. What prompted this project?
A. I was teaching a workshop in Batavia, New York in 1972 for sighted people. One night, when I was teaching how to see the aura, one man was particularly good. He saw the colors. He picked up the physical problems where it looked very dark in this one person's aura.
Afterward his wife told me that her husband was totally blind. He'd been blind for 42 years. I was shocked. She said, "I dragged him here because I didn't want to come alone. He doesn't believe in this stuff." I asked him, "Where do you see from?" He said, "I've been seeing through my forehead."
A year later another blind man came in. I thought that with two blind people, we could set up an experiment. So, I got together a board of advisors, including ophthalmologists and medical doctors. The blind people did really well. The technique they excelled at was aura scanning. They were very motivated to do well in remote viewing.
Q. When you give readings, do you work one-on-one with a person?
A. Yes. I also do telephone readings. I don't think I'm disciplined enough to sit down and do a reading if they write and request one. I need something of them - I've got to hear their voice or have them here in the room.
Q. Can you do it over the phone without holding anything of theirs?
A. Usually I ask them to send me a sample of their handwriting in advance, and then I touch the handwriting. And the reason I use the handwriting is because objects that have sentimental or material value have gotten lost in the mail.
Q. I see you wear a wristwatch - I know two psychics who tell me they can't wear a watch because it stops running. Have you ever heard of that?
A. Yes, it happened to me for about three years, but it doesn't anymore. I gave up wearing watches; and then my husband bought me this watch several years ago and I wear it and it's fine. I don't know what changed.
Q. It is said that women's intuition is better than men's. Are women better prospects for becoming psychic?
A. (with laughter) Of course. I think that in the past women did a lot of repetitious work, like ironing, scrubbing the floor, very boring work. So, I think they kind of spaced out. They naturally became more intuitive while the husband was out hunting the meat to bring home.
Men were having to make left-brain decisions. Now that has shifted so tremendously. In the research they say that women have a thicker corpus callosum between the left brain and right brain and it's the "double dominant" of people who make more accurate intuitive predictions. Women start out with that advantage. But men quickly catch up.
Q. I sat in on one of your lectures and noticed there were a lot more women, which is typical for A.R.E. conferences.
A. I think women are given more permission by society to believe in these things. Now that's changing tremendously. There are quite a few more men in my classes today than when I began teaching back in the 1970s. But, the proportion is still more women than men.
Q. Is there some key to developing their natural psychic ability?
A. Absolutely.
Q. And what is that?
A. Take Henry's and my workshops. I think the reason people come to them is because they read the books and the books tell you how to do it. But most people don't have someone to practice with.
Someone who's open will give them feedback, will listen to what they have to say, will help them distinguish the difference between a wish and a fear and an actual intuitive impression. Participating in a workshop is very, very helpful for a lot of people.
Most people are faced with relatives who say, "I don't believe in that. You don't really believe in that, do you? If you do, give me a reading." They're very harsh in their responses. We guide people in very different ways. We know that you have to say everything at first.
Then you start analyzing: Okay, this was incorrect; this was partially correct; this was correct; how did that feel different? That kind of guidance.
Q. In your lecture you were instructing them about interpreting the impressions that they were getting. When psychics give you information, they are really screening it, wherever it's coming from. And the accuracy of it often depends on that screen, that person.
So, two psychics could be picking up the same thing and delivering different interpretations. Is that not true?
A. Yes. We interpret it through our own life's experiences. In fact, as an example, a person in our class who was giving a reading said to the woman, "Do you enjoy doing crossword puzzles?
Because I see crossword puzzles here." And the woman said, "No, I hate crossword puzzles." But she said the kind of work she did involved taking different words and putting them together in some kind of pattern. And so I think it was a symbol.
The reader got the crossword puzzle because that was her experience, but this woman immediately recognized what it really was. So, it was her interpretation that was incorrect. We all have filters. Say I have a poverty consciousness.
That's a filter. And you're a businessman and you want information about contracts that involve hundreds of thousands of dollars. Do you think I'm going to be able to get that through my filters? I don't think so.
That's why Henry and I encourage people to take this course and do meditation and some self-discovery things and life's purpose courses. You're activating new energy. Take yoga or tai chi and so on. The more we can work on ourselves psychologically, spiritually, physically, and emotionally, the more those filters can dissolve.
Q. Do you recommend that people get psychic readings as a help in their lives?
A. Yes, but I suggest they not come back for a year. You might come for personal relationships, your children, etc., one time, and another time have all business questions. But, if someone starts wanting to come too often, I won't let them.
Q. Once a year's enough.
A. In the workshop you learn these skills so you don't have to come to people like me. You can get your own answers.
Q. Will we get to the point where we can all access this information?
A. Yes.
Q. And you are convinced most of us have the natural ability to do that?
A. Yes. I learned that very quickly after I found out I could do these things. My friends would say, I wish I could do that.
And I would analyze how I did it internally and I'd show them how to do it. And, they could. So, tens of thousands of people later I'm convinced of it.
