A MIDLIFE AWAKENING

An experienced medium tells the story of her spiritual awakening and offers hope and healing for others.

In 2012, Petruccelli was attending the Philadelphia Mind Body Spirit Festival, where she hoped to get psychic readings that would provide her with wisdom and comfort. But Argentinian medium Roberto Pena had something grander to tell her; he simply said to her: “It is your time.” Petruccelli began a psychic journey of her own, in which she says that she found that she was a medium who could both receive and transmit messages from “angels” and the spirits of the dead. Shortly thereafter, she founded the Pike Creek Reiki and Healing Arts Center in Newark, Delaware, as a place for channeling, meditation, and overall spiritual health. The first part of this memoir effectively focuses on her own growth and development as a spiritual guide over the past five years or so. The second, longer part of the book is essentially a medium’s diary—a week-by-week record of channeling experiences over the course of about a year. Often, she tells of receiving messages from well-known Christian figures: Martha, Mary Magdalene, and even Jesus. Other times, she writes of communicating with Buddhist masters, notably a goddess of compassion called Quan Yin. Sometimes the figures offer universal wisdom; at others, they carry personal messages for those visiting the Healing Arts Center. Over the course of this book, Petruccelli tells her own story—and her stories of channeling—with breathless enthusiasm. During the first section, for instance, she comes across as a gracious and grateful woman, spending ample time thanking her mentors for all the help they gave her. Sometimes, this energetic tone makes her book feel hastily written, but many readers will quickly sense that the narrative’s quick pace is simply the result of her own excitement. Those readers who find that they’re able to race along with her will be astounded and nourished.

A surprising and enlightening spiritual memoir.