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Vt. Town Decides It Has No Right to Ban Soothsayers
Jean O'Neal said that even her feng shui arrangement was illegal.
(By Toby Talbot -- Associated Press)
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"I said something needs to be done about this. This is ridiculous," O'Neal said. "The way I lay out my office . . . it wasn't legal."
The ordinance had left little to chance, banning practitioners from telling fortunes or attempting "to reveal future events in the life of another or by means of occult or psychic powers, faculties or forces, clairvoyance, psychometry, spirit-mediumship, prophecy, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, cards, talismans, charms, potions, magnetism or magnetized articles or substances, oriental mysteries or magic of any kind or nature; to undertake or pretend to find or restore lost or stolen money or property, gold or silver or other ore or metal or natural product; or to undertake or pretend to unite, or reunite or to find lovers, husbands, wives, lost relatives or friends."
However, Town Manager Mike Welch says it was never enforced.
Town officials say they don't know why the ordinance was passed in the first place. Perhaps there were concerns about "clairvoyants and the like," said Town Attorney Ed Zuccaro.
"Someone was afraid," O'Neal said.
Since the ban has been lifted, O'Neal can now feel comfortable practicing feng shui. She also has opened her space to Pawlowski to offer card readings.
She says she is open to all kinds of practices that help people heal and hopes to hold a holistic health exposition in town that could draw other practitioners.
"I'm very pleased," O'Neal said of the repeal. "I think it means that people are . . . open-minded to other ways of being healthy."
