Drawn to mysticism
A near-death experience gave Kelly Oswald enlightenment
Oddly enough, the time she spent in
hospital enlightened her.
“It made me realize that we are all one, that we can do whatever we set
our hearts to do,” she said. “I think a catalyst like a near death
experience can be a good thing – it gives you the courage to do whatever
it is you want to do.”
It worked for Oswald. The experience persuaded Oswald to open the West
Coast Institute of Mystic Arts, a New Age centre in North Vancouver. The
institute will celebrate its first anniversary next Tuesday.
“I needed to change my lifestyle,” Oswald said. “I wanted to do
something fun. If you’re going to spend eight hours a day doing
something, you might as well make it something you enjoy.”
“The idea came to me out of the blue. I can’t take credit for the idea –
it just popped into my head.”
Oswald is the founder and administrator of the institute which has grown
to include 36 teachers and about 400 students. Think of the institute as
a shopping centre for anyone interested in psychic development and
personal growth where you can choose classes in everything from
shamanism, clairvoyance, and Wicca to channelling, sound healing and
reading tarot cards.
A big part of what the institute does, Oswald said, is quite practical:
it helps people listen to their intuition and help them get to the point
where they’re living the way they always wanted to.
“We’re creatures of habit. Once people get into a relationship or job,
it becomes a habit. Changing course – even if they want to and know
they’re in the wrong situation – can be very difficult.”
Courses at the institute include free introductions to shamanic studies,
$10 drop-ins for healing circles, $45 for a course on handwriting
analysis, $285 for several classes on Wicca, and $975 for a course on
Shamanism that lasts for several months. The institute is not considered
a registered private post-secondary institution by the provincial
Secondary Education Commission.
Oswald is careful not to encourage anyone to rashly quit a job or leave
a relationship. Instead, what the institute does is help people build
bridges to what they really should be doing.
Oswald recalls one woman who came into the institute who admitted having
a crush on a fellow worker for two years but didn’t know how to let him
know that she did. Armed with Oswald’s encouragement, she finally told
him – only to discover he, too, had a crush on her. The two are now
married.
“When people start to feel empowered, it’s so exciting,” she said.
In explaining the appeal of the more ethereal side of what the institute
does, Oswald said the mystic arts are ancient practices being
rediscovered by people today.
“The tarot and other mystic arts exist because they are useful and
helpful,” she said. “Otherwise they would be obsolete, like beta video
and eight-track tapes.”
For Oswald, being psychic is something that’s always been part of her
life. As a youngster, she recalls feeling tapping on her back almost
every night when she went to bed.
“I was always very intuitive,” she said. “My parents always joked, ‘If
you want to know what’s going to happen, as Kelly.’”
Before her near-death experience, Oswald taught tarot and feng shui at
the North Vancouver Recreation Commission and North Shore Continuing
Education. Not everyone shared her attitude toward the mystic arts. A
parent complained, calling a course she taught on tarot for teens “a
whole dogma of witchcraft and sorcery under the guise of choice and
empowerment.” The course was cancelled.
Despite how magic and psychic powers appear to have gone mainstream with
the popularity of Harry Potter novels and The Lord of the Rings, Oswald
still has to deal with skeptics. It doesn’t bother her. Her first
response tends to be a laugh. Oswald has a well developed sense of irony
about the world and what she does – and she doesn’t take the criticism
personally.
She tells of the first time the institute held a smudge ceremony – where
they burned sage and sweetgrass – to clear the negative energy out of
its ground floor office space. The smoke set off the fire alarm, which
brought the fire department. It also happens that burning sage and
sweetgrass smells an awful lot like burning marijuana. “I told them it
was smudge,” Oswald said, laughing at the incident. “They didn’t believe
it. Now we have to be very careful when we smudge.”
Oswald, who commutes from Whistler, where she lives with her family,
said her husband, James, was also a skeptic at first. What helped turn
him around, Oswald said, were several psychic incidents with her eldest
son Ian. Her husband is now her biggest supporter.
“Other people who are skeptical, I try to be supportive of them. It’s
always interesting when I sit down with someone like that for a reading
and they cross their arms and say, ‘Okay, you tell me. You’re the
psychic.’ Nine out of 10 times, they’re pretty wowed.
“Some people don’t like this kind of stuff and that’s okay. It’s not for
everyone.”
The West Coast Institute of Psychic Arts, 1591 Bowser, North Vancouver,
celebrates its first anniversary starting at 7 p.m. next Tuesday. |