Michael Bodine was just 7 when his family figured out that he, his mother, and two of his siblings were psychic. (Yes, those Bodines; Echo is Michael’s sister.) What’s it like to grow up clairvoyant, let alone as a member of a haunted household in a strait-laced suburb in the 1960s and ’70s? We asked Michael Bodine for the backstory behind his new memoir, Growing Up Psychic: From Skeptic to Believer.
You talk a lot in the book about growing up as an Edina “cake-eater.” Now you’ve moved back to the area, living on France Avenue, right on the edge of Edina. Does Edina have strong psychic energy?
No—God no! We came back because of the house. When we toured this place, it looked like a haunted house. The guy who owned it hadn’t raked in like, 17 years, and everything was all overgrown. It even had a skeleton key to get in. And the guy died in the house. It just seemed like the place to be.
Seriously? Isn’t that asking for a ghost infestation?
No, it’s insurance against ghosts. The houses where we’ve gone ghostbusting look totally normal and boring, like Gabberts. Places like this—and graveyards—have almost no ghosts.
You talk in the book about your two kids having developed psychic abilities of their own. Is your mom happy about that?
Are you kidding? She’s thrilled. She loves to have them over to her house. She teaches them tarot cards and she likes to talk to them about Native American spiritually. She likes to go up into the mountains naked with just a book of matches, that kind of thing. I try to keep them away from my mother as much as I can.
In the book, you talk about a reading that your mother got, where she was told that three of her four children would use their psychic abilities. Which of you didn’t? Lance Bodine, your brother, or Nikki Bodine, your sister?
Lance. He’s a totally normal guy. He works construction and is like this conservative, McCain-all-the-way kind of guy. He doesn’t come around much. Nikki came to her abilities rather late, but she’s really good.
You mention in the book that you’ve done some readings for local business people. Did you ever work with Tom Petters?
We were introduced, and it was suggested that I could help him, and we talked about it. But then we both kind of decided we shouldn’t open that door. Whatever happened, I’m glad I didn’t get involved. What if I had seen that he was doing all kinds of weird stuff? It’s not like a psychic can go to the authorities, right?
Fair enough. Speaking of your psychic power, I brought along this list of gubernatorial candidates.
Oh, God….
Anyone look like a future governor?
Hmmm…. That’s interesting. I keep thinking [state Senator] John Marty. I get a strong sense that the people behind him, his staffers, know what they’re doing.
