"There is no special condition. I just simply know. I feel it and out of this the words form." That's how Ella Marnsardt, 42 year old clairvoyant of Marlen (in the S.W. of West Germany), summed up her craft to a reporter of Bunte magazine (1987 December 29).

Plump, blond, blue-eyed Ella sees clients in a basement room of the large, rambling, house. Her husband runs a sauna and massage facility on the ground floor and a live-in astrologer-friend, skinny 40-year old Zita Lutz, does horoscopes.

The Bunte reporter listened to Ella and Zita praise each other's skills and then went to talk to the crowd of clients in the waiting room.

A Catholic priest had on a previous visit wanted information about a woman in hospital. Ella merely asked for the woman's name, then said: "She has cancer. She hasn't got long. But she won't suffer." Ten days later, explained the priest, the patient was dead.

Ella explained that the name alone enables her to describe a stranger — their health, looks, and future. A 46-year old client planned a vacation in Spain. But Ella warned: "Don't go, under any circumstances." The hotel he had intended staying at was bombed.

A 40 year old female clerk told of a sister in law with years of severe back pain. Two months earlier Ella had diagnosed: "She has a spinal cord tumor." Five weeks after that, an operation left the in-law a paraplegic. But now Ella predicted, "She will walk again."

Ella refused to discuss her fees except to say that she has special rates for pensioners.

The reporter also sought the opinion of a physics professor: "Its all humbug, exploitation, and at best self deception."