Psychic offers to connect people with 'spirit world'
Posted Feb 9, 2012 By Blair Edwards
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"I see dead people," said Matthew Stapley.
Jessica Cunha photo
Matthew Stapley is the feature attraction at The Psychic Experience at the Ottawa Little Theatre on Feb. 11. He said he sees an aura of colours surrounding people and hears the voices of spirits who tell him what the colours mean.v
The Ottawa psychic medium said he discovered his gift of seeing and hearing messages from the spirit world at the age of eight, during a phone conversation with his father, who was visiting at a friend's house in Thailand at the time.
He described the room in detail, including the colour of his father's phone and the elephant tusks sitting on a table in his room.
"He dropped the phone," said Stapley. "It freaked him out." At the age of 11, he remembers waking up and seeing the image of his dead grandfather standing over his bed.
"Grandpa, you passed away years ago," said the 11-year-old boy.
"Yeah, but I had to be sure everyone was OK," replied his grandfather, according to Stapley.
The fledgling psychic shared the messages from his grandfather with his family members.
"That's when my family, my mom and dad, realized I could speak to the dead," said Stapley.
Stapley, who grew up in Carleton Place and now lives in Ottawa, will be featured at The Psychic Experience at the Ottawa Little Theatre, located at 400 King Edward Ave., on Saturday, Feb. 11 from 7 to 9 p.m.
The show will open with a talk about spirits by guest speaker Jennifer Clark, an angel therapy practitioner and professional spirit teacher.
Tickets are $30 each with a portion of the proceeds going to support Operation Go Home, an organization that helps homeless youth.
"Everyone will have a different experience," said Stapley. "I speak with whatever energy comes to me at the time." Stapley has encountered his share of skeptics - people who believe psychics are frauds who use tricks like cold reading and providing vague predictions that could easily be interpreted in different ways by people who want to believe they are talking to their dead loved ones.
In 2010, the Ottawa Sceptics Society gathered outside the Mayfair Theatre in downtown Ottawa to picket Stapley's first-ever psychic show.
Stapley later wrote a thank you letter to the society for increasing interest in the show.
People who attend psychic shows come with questions like whether they are following the right life path or what the future holds for them.
As a self-professed clairvoyant and clairaudient medium, Stapley said he can help others connect with the spirit world, relaying information provided by spiritual guides, angels and loved ones who have died.
The psychic medium said he never forces a connection - he'll offer to convey a message to someone in the audience, but they have the option of saying no.
The psychic said he sees an aura of colours surrounding people and hears the voices of spirits who tell him what the colours mean.
"Sometimes the spirit world will tell me about the future for people," said Stapley, adding that everyone has at least two spirit guides.
Stapley offers private readings for $60.
As a teenager, Stapley said he found it difficult to deal with his gift.
"When I turned 16, there was no way I could turn it off," he said. "It actually made me very depressed." Stapley, who attended three different high schools including Merivale High School in Nepean, said he once used his gift to defuse the attention of a prominent bully at Merivale.
The then 18-year-old fledgling psychic described a difficult personal situation the girl was dealing with at home and told her not to take it out on her classmates.
The stunned bully asked him how he knew about her personal life.
"I see dead people," Stapley told her.
When he graduated high school, Stapley studied in a nursing program at AlgonquinCollege, dropping out after he was injured in a car accident.
full-time career He later enrolled in a lab technician program at CDI College, graduated and worked as a lab tech for several weeks, before moving on to a full-time career as a psychic medium.
"There's nothing I'd rather do than this," said Stapley.
Everyone has a psychic talent, said Stapley - some are just more gifted or connected to the talent than others.
Compassion is an important trait of a psychic medium, said Stapley.
"I see the compassion aspect over everything else," he said. "I see helping people to healthy relationships about their life.
"I want people to feel they're not alone." To purchase tickets to The Psychic Experience Event, call the Ottawa Little Theatre at 613-233-8948 or go online at www.thepsychic experience.ca.
blair.edwards@metroland.com
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