Calgary’s sought-out psychic, Sandra Coates
Growing up on a Saskatchewan farm 65 years ago with hardly anything, Sandra Coates was taught how to do more than just play games with a deck of cards. She is now a popular psychic.
In her Arbor Lake apartment, Coates lights the candles on her comfortably cluttered oak table as she recalls how her mother would do the same.
A common night in her childhood home would include her mother playing a mouth-organ instrument while Coates and her four siblings would dance and sing. After, they would settle at the table, read tea-leaves and then play their favorite game: mental telepathy.
Bespectacled and wearing a bright blue shall, Coates, 69, reaches for her card deck, sitting among stones, candles and a meditation bell.
Recounting the game, she says, “We would hold the cards up like this and I would say, ‘Pick the jack of spades.’ It got to the point where every time you asked somebody, they could get it right.” 
Coates demonstrates her card reading skills.
Photo by: Amy Tucker
She says this gift of telepathy or psychic gift has been known to run in her family. Though Coates has been aware of this gift since the age of five, her grandmother had been the one to teach her how to use this gift through playing cards.
“I’d say ‘Grandma I have to tell that lady something’ and she’d shush me and say ‘No, you mustn’t tell,’” Coates says.
While her grandmother still feared what strangers might have thought, she did encourage her to channel her gift into another form. “She said, ‘Put it in the cards and people will listen, and they still do,” Coates added as she smiled referring to her steady clientele.
Coates’ says her clientele has been growing all of her life, since she began reading as a child.
“I have a following of people that come to me, once a week, once a month and once per season,” she says.
A job well done, to Coates, is the reoccurance of her followers as well as a means of guaging the accuracy of her readings.
Coates provides other services including guided meditation and a tea leaf reading course, all of which range from $40 and up depending on the amount of time spent with her and the type of service.
“Everybody has the ability to learn how to read and how to connect so you get the messages, you just have to practice. It’s just a way of life.”