A reading is a session where someone reads cards, or an egg in water, and talks with you about what is going on in your life. It usually runs half an hour to an hour. What it is not is a forecast: nobody can tell you a date, a lottery number or the day someone will come back.
I am Don Jacinto Nahual and I work in the curandero tradition of Catemaco, Veracruz. I read cards. I do not call myself a medium and I do not claim to speak with the dead, because I do not, and there is enough of that being sold already in this city.
What happens in a session
You sit down. You say what brought you, in as much or as little detail as you want. I lay out the cards and we go through them together, and I ask questions as we go, because a reading where only one person talks is not a reading, it is a performance.
Most of what comes up is not mysterious. It is the thing you already suspected and had nobody to say out loud. That is the honest description of this work, and it is more useful than the mystical version.
What a fair price looks like
In Los Angeles a reading runs roughly $40 to $150 depending on who you go to and how long it lasts. Anything advertised at $5 or $10 is bait: the money is made in what comes after, when you are told there is a curse and the removal costs hundreds.
A cleansing with me is $97 for the first session, about an hour, closed price. Three sessions is the normal course and heavy cases can run to nine. You hear that number at the start.
Three lines that mean you should leave
- "There is a curse on you and only I can remove it." The oldest script in the trade. It works because it frightens you, and fear is what is being sold.
- "Bring money or gold to be cleansed." No genuine practice requires your cash or jewelry to be handed over, blessed, or held. This one is straightforward theft and it is prosecuted as such in California.
- "Stop taking that medication." Walk out and do not go back.
I say this knowing it costs me business, because a reader who explains the con is a reader people trust less at first and more later. That trade is worth making.
What a reading will not do
It will not give you a date. It will not make someone love you against their will, whatever anyone tells you they can arrange. It will not replace a doctor for a body that is unwell or a therapist for months of hopelessness.
And it will not tell you something with certainty. Anybody who reads with certainty is not reading.
Common questions
Do you do phone or video readings?
Yes, though the first one I prefer in person. Some things do not come across on a screen.
Do I have to believe in it?
Most of the people who sit down in front of me are not sure what they believe. It has never been a problem.
Do you speak English?
Yes. I work in both languages every week.
How is this different from a botanica?
A botanica is a shop. A reading is a session with a person. Many botanicas have someone who reads, and the quality varies enormously.
Where I see people
Los Angeles, 1208 Venice Blvd. Santa Ana, 830 S Main St Ste 109, appointment only, because it is an interior office with no front desk.
(213) 598-1928. First call is free and it is not a sales call: if what you have is not for me, I will say so and point you elsewhere. If you want to understand the underlying work first, read what a curandero does.