If you've ever been hooked by a sideways glint from a fortuneteller or sat for a reading, you know how unsettling that can be.
But imagine growing up psychic, seeing dead people or sensing an impending disaster or illness in someone.
Children who possess such gifts are often just as rattled.
Chip Coffey had a decidedly different experience. But having spent the past several years teaching children with psychic abilities how to live with their gift, he realized there was a great and unmet need.
And so when he was approached to write his story two years ago, Coffey, best known for his appearances on the A&E Network shows "Paranormal State" and "Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal," figured a book was, perhaps, the best way to have the biggest impact, to reach the thousands of confused and hurting kids who were experiencing, well, the unexplainable.
In "Growing up Psychic: My Story of Not Just Surviving but Thriving and How Others Like Me Can, Too," the Lilburn resident shows how children with psychic abilities can develop and take charge of their gift.
Coffey, 57, will talk about the book, now out in bookstores, as well as conduct readings, at 7:30 p.m. May 14 at the Piedmont Park Conservancy in Atlanta.
"In the U.S., these kids are considered freaks of nature to a degree," Coffey said recently. "I wrote the book to say they are not."
Coffey's own story begins while growing up in upstate New York, where he attended Elmira College and graduated with majors in theater and psychology.
Long before caller ID, he was able to tell his parents who would be on the phone before they answered and sometimes predict a call before the phone rang.
To Coffey, that's no different from you thinking of someone and they suddenly call you on the phone.
Was it chance or some weird transfer of energy?
If you pull out the horror, the Hollywood pretense and see it as Coffey does, it's simply the paranormal.
"You can't understand it," Coffey said recently. "You can't explain it, but can't deny that something has occurred."
‘A leap of faith'
Because others in his family had had brushes with the paranormal, Chip Coffey didn't have to explain.
And so early on, he embraced his gift. He read books about psychic Jeanne Dixon, Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus, all the while remaining just a "normal" kid.
After college, he worked as a counselor in the entertainment and travel industries, sometimes supplementing his income by doing readings.
Then shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Coffey said the travel industry tanked and he lost his job. That's when he became a full-time psychic.
"I didn't have a safety net so I took a leap of faith," he said.
He started out doing telephone readings and as people started to take note of his talent, he was invited to local events and eventually national events.
By 2007, he was making regular television appearances, first on Paranormal State and then Psychic Kids, which he did for three seasons.
About two and half years ago, a New York literary agent asked him to write an autobiographical sketch of his life that would demystify a subject that many find strange and intimidating.
"People try to make it a lot bigger, weirder and spookier than it really is," Coffey said. "I'm trying to break away from that whole weird and woo woo aspect because I think the paranormal is more common than we realize."
Within five months of starting to write, he was done.
Reconciling his belief in the paranormal with his Catholic faith, hasn't been so easy, said Coffey, who has been accused of doing the devil's work.
"I'm not here to proselytize or force my beliefs down any one's throat," he said.
What he wants, at least from the book, he said is to educate everyone who comes into contact with children, who have been mistreated, misdiagnosed and mislabeled because of their gift.
"I want the book to begin to change things," he said.
“Coffey Talk”
7:30 p.m. May 14. $59-$179. Piedmont Park Conservancy, 400 Park Drive N.E., Atlanta. www.eventbrite.com/event/2775745329 or www.chipcoffeytour.com
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