The way things look on Beacon Hill, it may take a magician to get the Clean Elections Law funded. And that could be what gubernatorial candidate Warren Tolman has in mind. Tolman, a former state senator from Watertown, hosted a fundraiser at his old law firm of Holland & Knight on Tuesday — featuring a psychic who just happened to be an old college classmate of his from Amherst.

Tolman invited me to the event for two reasons: to garner attention for his insurgent campaign and to attest to the veracity of the predictions express-mailed to me by the psychic a week in advance of the event. I was the only reporter invited to the show (or perhaps I was the only one who agreed to go along with the game). At any rate, Tolman’s friend Gerard " The Experimentalist " Senehi sent a package to my office last week that contained an envelope with do not open until show scribbled on it.

Tolman hopes to raise 6000 contributions of between $5 and $100 in order to qualify for Clean Elections funding — if the law is fully funded — and he expected about 50 contributors to attend the psychic fundraiser. As instructed, I showed up with my envelope of predictions unopened. After a brief networking session with complimentary fruit and brownies, Tolman’s friend Dave Wilson introduced the candidate with the message " if you want politics as usual, get another candidate. " Then Tolman rose to give his stump speech after quipping that with so much talent in the room, he felt like the seventh husband of Elizabeth Taylor.

Following a show by a magician, Senehi took center stage. His shtick was performing alleged acts of " telekinesis " — bending spoons, bending audience members’ keys, and so on. He even took someone’s wineglass and twisted it. Gimmickry? Probably. But still, I couldn’t help but be impressed.

Then came the part I had been waiting for: the predictions. Senehi had asked me before the show if I wanted to open the envelope and read it — or if I wanted someone else to do it. On the way over, I had imagined reading the prediction in an authoritative manner, like Walter Cronkite. But when I got there, I changed my mind. So Senehi chose a woman in the audience to read the predictions. First, he asked her to select a card from a deck. She pulled out a two of clubs. Then she opened the envelope. There, written on a piece of paper were the words: " two of clubs. " Again, it was impressive, but the entire deck probably consisted of two-of-clubs cards. Anyway, Senehi then asked her to read the predictions. This is, most relevantly, what she read: " I see a really beautiful day, but it’s hot, really hot, and no rain for now. " Someone shouted out, " All right, you saw the weather report. "

" No, this is not from the news channel, " she continued, reading Senehi’s words. Then she said, " I see David speaking and talking about Warren, but he says Warren’s not your guy. He must mean that in a positive way. And I see Warren comparing himself to Elizabeth Taylor. There must be more meaning to that than I’m getting. In the room I see a young man with a camera on my left. I see a woman with a long blue dress and I think she’s the one reading this note. "

When the woman mentioned David speaking, Tolman shouted out that he had asked Wilson to introduce him only that day — so the group could not have collaborated beforehand. And Tolman seemed stunned to hear the prediction about Elizabeth Taylor, because he had made the joke spontaneously. The crowd, so skeptical before the woman read the predictions, was quiet now. Someone was filming the proceedings with a video camera — one of Tolman’s campaign workers. And the woman reading the predictions was wearing a long blue dress. It was positively spooky.

But it couldn’t have been nearly as spooky for Tolman as House Speaker Tom Finneran, who has the power to decide whether the Clean Elections Law gets fully funded, and hence the power also to determine Tolman’s political future.

After the performance, when I had regained my reporter’s skeptical instincts, I asked Senehi to make a truly important prediction: what was going to happen with Clean Elections and the Tolman campaign. He immediately clammed up. " I can’t talk about that, " Senehi said. " I only entertain. " Having heard that Senehi had once lived in Israel, I asked him about the Middle East. Again no answer, other than to say that what was happening there was sad. He alluded to being asked similar questions by " world leaders, " but when I pressed him, he excused himself. At least on the Fox News Channel, the psychics will tell you what happened to Chandra Levy — a question I never got to ask Senehi.

Issue Date: August 9 - 16, 2001