WORKING -- Nila Keith

Story by Jennifer Kho; photo by [tk]

SHE IS

Reading your energy and predicting your future

BREAKING INTO THE METAPHYSICAL

Nila Keith, a Tarot card reader at The Latest Thing for two years, has

been involved with the metaphysical field for more than 20 years.

She said she was part of the “swing of consciousness” and breakdown of

traditional ideas that started in the 1960s.

“I became vegetarian and began yoga,” she said. “Everyone was doing

astrology and trying to read the Tarot. Eventually, my pastime became a

profession.”

In 1972, Keith began doing psychometry while teaching classes about

spirituality in Pennsylvania.

She still sometimes does psychometry, the reading of objects,

occasionally using a crystal ball, and even has some knowledge of palm

reading, but now she focuses mainly on the Tarot.

The importance is in the reader, not the reading method, Keith said.

“You do them all, more or less, but as you go on, you pick up an

affinity for one,” she said. “They are all the same, just a method of

getting where you need to go.”

THE DESIRE TO LEARN

Keith, 54, said anyone could have the power to get in touch with his

or her metaphysical talent.

“I don’t like the word ‘gifted’ because it’s not so much a gift as a

desire to explore beyond the physical senses,” she said. “It was a talent

I wanted to pursue that became a gift because I developed it. Anyone

could do it, but not everyone wants to.”

She was a medical assistant for a few years, adding hypnosis and

massage therapy to her repertoire of skills, but 20 years ago she

realized that the more traditional job was not what she wanted to do.

But Keith said her hypnosis background gave her a better understanding

of the subconscious mind and how it works.

She said the analytical, critical personality typical of her

astrological sign, Virgo, makes her good at quickly picking up

subconscious patterns within other people.

Keith says she is not 100% accurate.

“I read the energies of the present, and based on that I am able to

predict with some degree of accuracy what will happen in the future,” she

said. “But it’s not set in stone. A decision you make today could change

that future.”

THE HIGHS AND LOWS

The most difficult part of being a reader is knowing how much to tell

the person you are reading for, Keith said.

People often ask how sick they are or whether their husbands are

cheating on them, and if the news is bad she sometimes struggles with how

much to reveal.

The most rewarding part is getting to the heart of a problem and being

able to make changes to help people improve their lives, Keith said.

“As they grow, I grow, and as they change, I change,” she said.