How to go
What: The Victory of Light Expo
When: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Where: Sharonville Convention Center, 11355 Chester Road, Sharonville
Cost: $14 (single day), $20 (weekend), children 12 and younger get in free, $2 discount for seniors and students
More Info: (513) 929-0406, or www.victoryoflight.com
Since local psychic Victor Paruta started the Victory of Light Expo just over 20 years ago, it has grown into one of the largest psychic events in the country.
It includes internationally renowned psychics doing one-on-one readings, more than 60 workshops covering many holistic and paranormal topics, and other amenities such as face painting, belly dancing, live music and food.
Paruta called the Victory of Light a positive, fun experience that was ideal for families, the curious or just anyone who doesn’t have someone to talk to.
“(At the expo), it’s normal to have seen a ghost or have had a paranormal experience,” he said. “And nobody is going to criticize you or think you’re crazy. It helps take the mystery out of the phenomena, makes people realize this is a normal part of being human.”
Indeed, de-mystifying the mystical has been one of Paruta’s main goals since he started developing his own psychic ability as a young man. He claimed that everyone is born with an innate psychic ability.
“Everyone has experienced walking into a room and having a peaceful or uncomfortable feeling,” he said. “If you have an interest in it, and study and practice it, you can develop your intuition. It’s the same as learning to be a good cook or becoming a bodybuilder. Everyone has the capacity to build their physical musculature, but if you don’t hit the gym, it doesn’t happen.”
The expo will be at the Sharonville Convention Center on Saturday and Sunday.
Paruta’s interest in the paranormal is lifelong (“I was the five-year-old kid wanting my mom to buy the astrology book in the checkout line”), but he didn’t discover his own ability until he was a teenager, when he began having precognitive dreams.
“They were just snippets of everyday life,” he said. “Nothing earth-shattering. I’d dream of playing tennis with a friend and making a certain shot a certain way, and a couple of weeks later, it would happen exactly as I’d dreamed. And it happened again and again. The places that you usually go for answers — school, church — didn’t work for me. Then one day, I went into a bookstore and found a book called The Inner Life, written by a clairvoyant. That book opened up a whole new world for me, made me realize there is a science and a tradition behind all of this, through Eastern philosophy. But I didn’t call myself a professional psychic until my late 20s, when I would do readings and clients would keep coming back because they were accurate.”
Paruta will be doing live readings at the Expo, and he said he typically gets an audience of 250 to 300 people, who frequently ask about deceased loved ones.
“People always ask me how I can do readings in a crowd like that and not be distracted,” he said. “But clairvoyants see with the mind, not the eyes, and when someone asks a question, they just light up. You can tell when it hits home. It’s very emotional, especially if someone never received closure with the person they lost.”
In Paruta’s view, physical healing and emotional healing go hand in hand, thus alternative medicine is also a big part of the Expo, with several experts in Reiki, acupuncture, and therapeutic massage slated to attend. Paruta downplayed the mainstream medical community’s typically dim view of such practices.
“I don’t think that’s true anymore,” he said. “So many traditional practices are integrated. A high percentage of physical illnesses are caused by stress, so meditation techniques can facilitate good health, which is why so many doctors have a massage therapist on staff. I welcome skepticism, but I think people need to be open-minded enough that when they hear the truth, they’re able to take it in instead of building up a wall. Most of our problems tend to be spiritual ones, and if you can see spirituality in a new light, and get meaning from it, that helps grow and become more mature and better people.”
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