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Do you have an amazing business to showcase, or an incredible story to tell?

This month emmaheaven.com is shining the spotlight on...

Chriswick

I met Angie Barnett - a psychic, at her shop Chriswick, In Brynhyfryd, Swansea.

I was enthralled as I sat and listened to her story, and I know when you start reading it you will be too. I could have listened to her for hours and hours - fascinated, enchanted and ‘bewitched’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt. So I’ll just let Angie tell you herself...

“Chriswick is the family name - it was my grandmother’s maiden name - we’ve all inherited the gift. We have two different sides to the family who carry the gift - my grandmother practised everything from black magic to voodoo, she did the crystal ball, regular playing cards, cartomancy and she also had spirits in her house, so my grandmother’s house was VERY active. As a child growing up, even though I was the youngest of four children, I had more of an interest in it than my siblings did.

Every Sunday I would go around to my grandmother’s house where she had her ‘witchy cupboard’; and we would have to wait until my grandfather went to bed before she’d bring it all out. She’d always give us snippings of what we could expect to happen in the future and things like that, but she would never - as a young girl - teach us how to use our gift, and she wouldn’t educate us on how to use it with other people, as my grandmother’s philosophy was, you have to learn to use it yourself. “I’ll guide you but you have to mould your own way of doing things”. So for years and years I tried to mirror her and tried for years to find the crystal ball and things like that, that would work for me, but it was not for me.

I was very active in seeing spirits, very active in hearing spirits and so on and so forth but my first tool that I used with the gift was tarot cards and given to me as a present when I was 18 and I still have that first pack of tarot cards now. So that was really the thing that I played with on a personal standpoint. But when I talk about the family gift, my dad has it obviously, it doesn’t skip a generation, my sisters have it, my nieces have it but we all have it in different forms. So we have some that use Romany gypsy cards, we have somebody that sees angels, we have one that has the natural gyp that doesn’t need any tools and has it instantly as a psychic ability, we have one that studies astrology and everybody has their own special thing and that’s my grandmother’s side of the family.

But we have a Romany background to us as well. My grandfather’s side - two grandfathers previous to him, married a Romany gypsy - so we are what you would call a ‘didicoy’ (mixed Romany and non-Romany heritage), so we have Romany gypsy blood as well as my grandmother having the natural psychic witch abilities - if you will - so it’s all an accumulation of everything.

All my life I’d used that gift to guide me into whichever career direction I went. At the age of 19 I left home and went to work for a company called Steiner Management Services in Miami, a company I was with for 18 years, working my way up to Vice-President of the resort division. Unfortunately I was forced to resign when my boss was replaced with someone I couldn’t work with. At the time I was - “what am I going to do?” - that was my identity and I thought - “I’m not going to walk into another company as a Vice-President - I’m going to have to take a pay cut”. I didn’t want to travel as I’d done that! I was married to my job!

But I also looked at it as a new opportunity - what could I do now? Living in Miami - I used to run everyday and I’d run past St Jude’s church where I’d light a candle and say - “right, guide me - show me the right direction I should be going in”. Because I believe in my gift and I believe in using it to my own advantage, but there are certain things you can’t do for yourself.

I started looking on the internet and I have no idea how I ended up on this medical website but I applied for the job as a director. I went to meet them for an interview, where they asked me what title I wanted - the package was more than what I was on before - it was less than a mile away from where I lived - I’d run past this building everyday for two years and didn’t know it existed and it was 150 yards from St Jude’s church where I prayed every single morning. And the weirdest part about it was it was owned by two gentlemen - one was a shaman and the other practised Cuban black magic called Santeria and here I am a white witch coming into their company - you couldn’t have made it up!

I really loved that role but unfortunately my brother passed away. And it was so strange because I used to go to a lady for my readings because you can’t read for yourself and she used to use bones and she had a shop Ninth Chakra which ultimately inspired me to do this - and she said to me at the time - “this is going to be you in the future” - and I was thinking - “are you nuts? I’m in a six figure job - I live in a beautiful apartment in Miami - I can’t see me going to do a little shop like that - no way!”

But two months later my brother passed away and the day I got back home to the UK, I decided I was going to stay. We always have a family meeting and if there’s any big decisions, we always call a family meeting - and so we thought maybe it was time to open my shop.

My sisters did the research, looking for properties for me and it was bizarre as my passport was due to come to an end, even though I had a green card, my car lease was coming to an end - everything was closing up around that time frame - so it was a sign - pushing me home and so my sisters found this property and it was perfect. Everything seemed to fall into line.

I wanted the shop to have a family feel - so you’ll see family heirlooms all around - there are artefacts from the 1800s belonging to the family - birth certificates, wedding certificates and all sorts of stuff. The shop was originally called The Witches of Chriswick but we changed it to Chriswick when we opened online. And we also launched RevHeel, which is a way of revealing yourself on the back (high) heel of your shoe, also we didn’t want people to see the word ‘witches’ and feel scared, so we re-branded to Chriswick. So over the years we launched our book and introduced RevHeel. We’ve also got involved with lots of corporate events.

We wanted to create a bit of a safe haven with the shop - when you come for a reading it can be a little unnerving on so many levels. One, because you don’t know what you’re going to hear. Two, you’re not sure if you want to hear what you’re told - do you really want to know the truth? And three, just in general it can be a life-changing experience. It’s amazing because over the years you get to see pregnancies, babies born from the prediction - you’ve seen weddings, house moves, job change - everything! It’s not a case of being right about the readings because 27 years I’ve worked with my cards and I don’t doubt them at all. The joy for me is seeing my clients happy and a happy client is a returning client. It’s a voice, because a positive voice will give you more than an advertisement. My business has been built on word of mouth and has grown and grown.

With a reading - when somebody comes into the room, I don’t ask them why they’ve come. I normally address the fact I’m taking it that they’ve come for a reason - I never ask them why they come as I always pick up on it - it’s very very rare that I don’t, but the reason why I bring it up in the beginning is, if there’s still questions they have at the end then I’m happy to do a spread on whatever topic they have in their mind. Either way, they leave with answers.

How it works is - I work with tarot cards - but tarot is just my channel if you will - it’s just a tool - it’s a way of bringing out my gift because there are many ways I have. I work with the tarot cards for my oversight and to open up the door. I do work through mediumship but I don’t guarantee you’re going to contact anyone at all - it’s not Tesco’s - they don’t come over the counter - if they do want to come, I let them come in. I work with my spirit guides but I’m also - I’m a little strange with the gift as well because if there’s any physical ailments going on in your body, I generally pick up on them. And how I pick up on them is they give the pain to my body - the exact spot as a talking point for me and as soon as you’ve accepted it and say yes that is happening - it leaves my body straight away.

I’m also clairsentient, so I pick up on smells from the spirit world, so they will give me significant things, but I’ve also got a visionary memory so what they do is play a video in my head - strange but true - they’ll show me a scenario so I can bring it up as a talking point - so there are many ways that that gift all comes together. We do several different spreads. Once we’ve identified what I call the ‘hotspots’ - we do focus spreads - as everybody wants answers - we’ll do a spread and take a look at the outcome of what the situation is - I’ll give you timing on when you can expect certain things to happen.

Sometimes I can be spot on to the day with my timings and sometimes I can be a little out - that’s not down to me being wrong - that’s down to the universe may have stepped in and something may not be ready the other end. But I do it on a please or offend basis unfortunately. Don’t come unless you want the truth, because I won’t pussyfoot around - I don’t believe in telling people things they want to hear, because when your reading doesn’t manifest - you’ll think it’s rubbish; and I take what I do very personally - it is something I am very proud of as I’ve had to learn and work with this all my life and it is something I take great pride in- not just for me, but for my family. The only time someone leaves unhappy - is when they don’t like what they’ve been told - but don’t come then!

There is no such thing as coincidence. People come into your life for a reason, a season or for a lifetime. And when we’re searching for certain things, certain things come in to give you extra wings. So there is no such thing as coincidence - everything is set out for you, whether you choose to change your destiny along the way - which you can do.”

You see - I told you you’d be fascinated and enthralled. Her gift is so complex and amazing, I’ve already arranged to have my own reading.

If you are curious and have questions you want answered, then book in and have your reading done. You can contact Angie at Chriswick, 1-2 Brynhfyryd Square, Swansea SA5 9EB. Tel: 01792 426745.