Interview with Cedric Grant Bouchard:
When did you first realize you were psychic?
It’s always been in my blood, in one way or another. Both my father’s side and my mother’s side. In the alpine village my grandfather came from, there were quite a few families of psychics, readers, and healers. I guess you could call it an enclave for traditional arts. I have no idea how long they’d be then there, but if I were to guess, at least some time since the Middle Ages. There wasn’t much love for psychics and healers back then, so they stayed in their own corner of the world until hard times forced them out. They took a boat to New York, and the rest was history.
My grandfather started training me to use my skills when he saw them start to come out. Usually he’d start with something like meditation and getting me to focus, and then he’d move to games, like guessing the card from a playing deck or trying to recall my dreams to see what they mean.
What skills did you have as a child?
First it was the prophetic dreams. Sometimes they were small things, like dreaming about my different tarot clients who might come to my mother’s parlor, or that the farm next door got a new horse. Sometimes, I might dream of something more important, like someone close to me falling ill, and the departed, who may contact me to ask for help.
Did you work in the family business?
No. I went to college and put it off for a long time. It’s not easy to do this for a living, and I saw how hard it could be for family. I grew up in the North Country near the Canadian border. It was very provincial, and so were the attitudes. Sometimes, they’d come in secretly on Saturday night so their neighbors didn’t see them, and then they’d still talk about my family when they went to church that Sunday morning. Between the two of them, I think they helped most folks between Au Sable Forks and Montreal.
So no, I didn’t plan to stick around. We had a small farm, and frankly, I wanted to stop getting up at the crack of dawn to milk goats. I went to school in Buffalo with the youthful determination to blend in, only to realize I couldn’t.
What happened?
I was outed at Lily Dale by a psychic. Actually, it’s funny now, but it was devastating back then. I guess she could tell pretty easily. And I was pretty sharp by then. I could always tell before asking a girl out if she’d say no. And I was right most of the time.
I worked in publishing locally for a little while and took clients on the side slowly until I realized this was in my blood, and frankly, it was more enjoyable than working in an office. If imagine most psychically sensitive people have trouble with conventional workspaces. The people, the noises – it has to be draining on everyone, but I was exhausted as soon as I arrived. After a few incidents, I realized I couldn’t hide who I was, so I started doing the circuit, visiting psychic fairs and renting shops. I saw a lot of America from one coast to another.
What was your favorite place?
South Florida. I live here full time now. It was tough choice. At heart, I’m a country boy but life without snow is nice. I find the sunshine psychically invigorating. I feel strongest here. The colors, the sights, and the scents: everything is amplified and I find that even reading tarot is easier.
Tell us about your tarot practice.
My mom taught me how to read tarot when I was a kid. For me, it was more of a chore, a thing I had to do. While the other kids around me were being taught to get ready for First Communion and Confirmation, I was learning about the major and minor arcana. It was a rite of passage and initiation.
You also do astrology. Tell us about that.
Astrology is a lot like the tarot. Both deal with archetypes and themes inherent in human existence. I start doing astrology as an adult, and I use it in every type of reading I do, in one way or another. It’s the map and timestamp of the universe. We’re spirits with free will, but we’re also creatures who live by the cycles of our planet and the universe. No matter what happens to people, it will happen according to the parameters already set forth. After all, river doesn’t carve a path over mountains but between them. Astrology is the blueprint and schedule for all things.
Tell us about your reading style.
I prefer to keep it simple. Giving a reading is like being an interpreter in a conversation between a human being and the universe. There’s no need to make it more complicated; in fact, it’s up to you to make the parties understand what the other is saying. I don’t like muddling readings up with New Age talk or convoluted ideas. People don’t want to be talked to in concepts. They want real advice.