Sonoma’s newest psychic shares her ‘gift from god’

Sonoma psychic is NOT Whoopi Goldberg|

Georgia Hope wants Sonomans to know one thing: she’s not Whoopi Goldberg.

To be specific, she’s not the kind of spiritualist/psychic played by Goldberg in “Ghost.”

In that Oscar-winning film, Goldberg could speak to ghosts, and had a series of lively conversations with dead people.

“I don’t bother the dead,” says Hope. “The dead are in Heaven. They are busy. They are with God. They have better things to do than be bothered by me.”

Hope, 66, was born in L.A., but has lived off-and-on in the Bay Area throughout her life. Most recently, she lived in Southern California. But after 16 years in Riverside, she decided to relocate to Sonoma. Eight months ago, she took over the cozy live-work space at 545 W. Napa St. where psychic April Elizabeth Adams had been practicing until early last year. Locals accustomed to seeing the signs advertising tarot readings, palmistry and spiritual guidance may not realize that the sign might look more-or-less the same, but there is definitely a new psychic in town.

“We’re under new management,” Hope laughs. “And I am very happy to be here. Los Angeles was too hectic for me. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

Asked why she chose Sonoma to start a new practice, Hope insists the choice was not hers.

“It was God’s choice,” she says. “I do whatever my good spirits tell me to do. I go where they tell me to go, and I stay where they tell me to stay – and they told me to come to Sonoma. So here I am.”

Allowing that it has taken several months to establish herself in her new home, Hope says little by little, one tarot reading at a time, her clientele has been growing.

“People definitely know I’m here now,” she says.

Hope conducts her consultations in her living room or dining room, where the accoutrements of her craft stand ready and waiting: a crystal ball, a deck of cards, a large ceramic model of a hand, commonly used in palmistry. Overlooking all of this is a large stature of the Virgin Mary.

Admitting that there are misperceptions about what a spiritualist does and doesn’t do, Hope says some clients come in with unrealistic expectations. Ultimately, though, most people want the same thing.

“People are lost, and they want answers,” Hope says. “So they come and see me. And I work with them to gently guide them back onto the path that is right for them.”

Asked how she originally became a practicing spiritualist, Hope softly suggests that one does not “become” a psychic.

“I was born this way,” she says. “I was 9-years-old when I first showed that I have the gift, but I’ve always had it. The gift goes way back in my family. I have ancestors with the gift. My grandmother had it and my mother had it. I didn’t learn this out of a book. And I can’t teach it to anyone, either. You either have it or you don’t. It’s God-given.”

The women of her family have always used their gifts to help others, Hope says, adding that in her family, the “business” has truly been passed down from one generation to the next.

“Once I started using my gifts to help people, my mother stopped working with people,” she says. “Before that, when my mother first started, her mother stopped. It’s been passed along, directly, that way.”

And Hope could not be happier. Being a practicing spiritualist, she affirms, has been a tremendously rewarding career. Rather than being taxing or exhausting, she says working with clients is exhilarating.

“The more people I talk to, the more power and intuition I get,” she says. “When I talk to people, it opens me up, and opens up my abilities even more. I’ve been doing this for almost 50 years, so that’s pretty ‘open.’ Right now, I’m full speed ahead.”

Hope has grown daughters, who she says also have the gift, and presumably, she will one day pass the business to one of them. Until then, with a gradually building clientele and positive word-of-mouth, she says she’s looking forward to working with the people of Sonoma for a good long time.

“All I can do is give my best advice to people, to counsel them to the best of my knowledge,” Hope says with a smile. “If they want to take my advice, that’s up to them. The work I do is always about healing and helping. Since my gift is from God, I believe all the work I do should be God’s work. So I help people, I advise them, and I give them the tools they need to become whoever it is God wants them to become.”

Email David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.

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