HOW I CAME TO THIS: PART TWO
UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY
Dixie Yeterian, circa 2004

 Although I tried to repress my intuition, I felt an intense need, indeed a compulsion, to understand it. I couldn’t talk about it with anyone. In our family, the word “psychic” was as forbidden as the word “sex”. My mother had a natural gift of prophecy, so I went to her for help. But her responses only added to my confusion. Mom’s acceptance of her talent was colored by her religious philosophy. She believed that she had a “special gift from God”. It was made clear to me that an ornery little brat was unlikely to be the recipient of a Divinely-bestowed gift; so I had to be in league with demonic forces. Yet, though I knew I lacked piety, I also knew that I wasn’t evil. There had to be a rational explanation for my abilities. I was determined to find it.

So I turned to books. At the age of ten, it became my habit to visit the public library every day after school. I would pass the hours sitting on the floor between the enormous bookshelves, totally engrossed in works about religion and psychism. As my reading time was limited, after a while I began to sneak some of the books into my home. My parents were not well educated and had little respect for book learning. My mother resented my reading because it took me away from my chores. The reading of any subject was frowned upon, but the subjects I pursued were absolutely forbidden.
Because I shared a room with my sister, the only safe place to read was the bathroom. I would lock the door there and read for hours. When this began to be resented, I started reading in bed at night. Huddled beneath the blankets, I would squint my eyes to make out the words in the glow of my flashlight until sleep overtook me.

By the time I was twelve, I had read and reread everything our library had to offer. Some of the books had been genuinely interesting, but I had to conclude that none had answered my most pressing questions. I still didn’t understand my intuitive abilities. Those works, which had described other people’s intuitive experiences, had rarely offered explanations of the phenomena, and these explanations failed to satisfy me. The psychics I had read about had either believed, as my mother did, that they were heavenly-ordained prophets or that their information or knowledge came from the “Spirit world”. I remained in the dark.

Then my family moved to another town. A full-fledged teenager, now, I found myself excited by new friends who didn’t know about my “weirdness” and didn’t fear me. I discovered how amusing boys can be and became totally involved with the typical adolescent concentration on dating, football games, and acne. My fascination with parapsychology was stuffed in the closet with my dolls. I became a closet intuitive.

At the age of eighteen, I met and married my husband. He is a logical, conservative Armenian, an aerospace engineer. I didn’t tell him about my intuitive abilities. He probably wouldn’t have married me if I had. However, as I settled into our marriage and our emotional bonds grew stronger, my intuitive perceptions began to return, even more powerfully than before. I became attuned to my husband’s emotions, always knowing what kind of mood he was in or when something important happened to him, regardless of how far apart we were.

It took him a long time to accept my talents. He jokingly called me a “good guesser”. He usually believed that I had prior knowledge, or that someone was in collusion with me, giving me information about his activities when we were apart. Gradually, he came to accept the validity of my perceptions.
Schooled in scientific analysis, he always hesitated to accept anything that defied his understanding of natural law. He was mystified by me; so he decided to study my abilities, to either prove or disprove the existence of my extrasensory perceptions.

Using the Rhine techniques, he tested me exhaustively, collecting hundreds of test scores. He drew up charts and graphs to record my rate of accuracy and the trends and patterns I evidenced. Then, he correlated all the factors that seemed to influence the reliability of my perceptions. For instance, we discovered that the amounts of liquids that I consumed influenced my sensitivity. When I was deprived of liquids, I tested much lower. One, or even two, 4-ounce glasses of wine increased my ability to perceive. More than that amount caused it to decline. We tested the effects of weather, rest, foods - everything he could think of that might be of influence. For two years, our bedroom walls were papered with charts, graphs, and reliability data.

By now, my intuitive awareness was not only completely reawakened, it was becoming more and more a part of my everyday experience. I still didn’t totally understand it, but I’d learned to accept it. I followed the advice of a psychiatrist friend, who told me I should find some way to use my abilities so that they could benefit humanity. I returned to school and began my studies toward a degree in psychology. I thought my intuitive awareness might be useful in a counseling career.

At college, I met other people who were interested in parapsychology. Public awareness was beginning to grow so that the subject was discussed openly in many of the classes, and regularly in the student union hall. Several of us decided to form a study group. There, I finally found some answers.
Possibly the most important thing I discovered was that my abilities were not unique. None of the other people in the group claimed to be especially perceptive. They didn’t expect to develop psychic awareness. They were just interested in studying the subject. However, within a few weeks, every member of the group was experiencing heightened intuition. Within six months, every member of the group was exhibiting a substantial degree of extrasensory perception. From this, I concluded that intuitive perception is an innate ability, a suppressed sensitivity that lies dormant within everyone.

Because of the extensive research I’d already done, the group selected me as their leader. Thus, I began teaching my first group of parapsychology students. That was many, many years ago. (I’m still teaching, and it’s as true now as it was then….that I must strive constantly to expand my knowledge and to improve my talents in order to remain half a step ahead of my students.)

To my amazement, my classes generated an enormous amount of excitement in our small community. Soon, I was teaching three classes a week and had compiled a list of more than 600 applicants for future classes. Then, as now, I limited the size of my classes because to be an effective teacher, I feel it’s important to establish a deep, personal connection with each of my students.

In order to pay for my education I was giving speeches to women’s clubs. At that time, there was a shortage of qualified workers in clerical positions, so I would speak to women about a program that offered to pay for their education and promised them a job with the State or Federal government if they completed a series of studies in office administration with a grade of “B” or better. After one of these presentations at UCSB, I went for dinner with the people who worked in the lecture coordination department. During our meal, and after a few glasses of wine, the conversation somehow turned to my interest in parapsychology. They asked me if I would be willing to return for another lecture on that subject.

I need to interject that at this time, the subject of parapsychology was brand new. To most, the word “psychic” was synonymous with fortune-teller, satanist, fraud, or even worse. The organizers thought my presentation might be of interest to a very small, select group of “free thinkers”. They never expected what happened.

They expected fifty to one hundred people to attend, so they set up a small room. I arrived, ready to speak, and was told the presentation had been moved. They moved the audience several times before I could speak. More and more people kept arriving. We ended up nearly filling a hall that would hold twelve hundred. People in the audience were looking around, recognizing their neighbors, their co-workers, and in some cases, their best friends; and saying, “I never would have imagined you were interested in this.” They were terrified that someone might think they were weird!
My presentations at that time were very basic, saying: “We are all intuitive beings. The experiences and knowings you’ve been having are a natural part of human existence. There are new, scientific studies that are beginning to validate the fact that man has awareness beyond the limitations of the previously recognized five senses. In fact, it appears that the intuitive sense is the only sense that doesn’t have an organ through which to function, so it uses your dominant sense to present information.”

As a result of this presentation, I began to be solicited by other universities. I appeared on radio and television shows to promote these lectures. Because of the popularity of these promotional appearances, I was offered a daily radio show and later, a weekly television series. Although I was offered national radio and television shows, I turned them down. My first priority was still my family. I had four children and was striving to be the perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect teacher, perfect student, and the perfect public presenter.

I had accepted a job with a local radio station, KLOM, in Lompoc, California for a daily morning show and then I also did a weekly TV show that was filmed at, and aired on, KCOY a local CBS affiliate station, and I continued trying to be the perfect wife, mother, radio-show personality, local tv-personality, lecturer, author (oh, I forgot to tell you that in my spare time, I wrote my first book: Exploring Psychic Reality) and now, part-time student. It took me eleven more years to complete my Masters in Psychology (which, by the way, has been significant because it makes it possible for me to teach and lecture at the university level).