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Before Monday, open a savings account, name it after one thing you put off, and set it to pull $10 from checking every Friday.
In 1991 a best-selling romance novelist named Jude Deveraux started paying a fortune-teller. The first payment was $1,200. Over roughly two decades it passed $17 million, and the defense never disputed the figure.
Some of it came from selling an apartment in New York. The promise, over and over, was that the money was only being cleansed, and it would come back.
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The fortune-teller was Rose Marks. The family ran four storefronts in Broward County, one of them in Fort Lauderdale called Astrology Life, plus one on West 58th Street in Manhattan, a short walk from Central Park. Clients were told they carried curses, and the cure was cash, gold and jewelry, handed over to be prayed over and returned.
One client was told to sacrifice $400,000 in gold coins because the Archangel Michael required it. I wish I was making that up.
Guess who got their money back? Nobody. In September 2013 a federal jury convicted Rose Marks on all fourteen counts, and on March 3, 2014 a judge sentenced the psychic to just over ten years in prison. Total taken from clients: more than $17.8 million.
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The Cleansing Fee
My name for any money handed over on the promise that it returns to you in another form. Usually the form is him. The reading that buys a date, the course that buys a reunion, the candle that buys a text. The receipt says spiritual. The math says it never comes back.
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Why the fee feels like faith
Here’s the part almost nobody talks about. The Cleansing Fee never feels like spending. It feels like a deposit on an outcome, so every new payment is protecting the old ones, and walking away means admitting the whole balance is gone.
“But I’m not spending millions. It’s $40 here and there.”
So was I. So was the novelist, at first: $1,200, then a few thousand here, a few thousand there. Nobody signs up for the total. The total sneaks up while you’re watching the calendar.
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Money spent on his return is gone. Money saved for your life is still yours on Monday.
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Am I telling you never to pay for a reading? I charge for them. I’d be a hypocrite in a purple shawl. Comfort is worth paying for, the way a massage is, as long as nobody slips a delivery date into the price.
Mine was $2,400 over fourteen months, six women, six different months. The statement is still in my desk drawer. Last night on the porch, with Judge asleep on my foot, I finally did the math I dodged for years. At $10 a week, $2,400 is 240 Fridays.
And the $2,400 was the cheap part. Savannah was the price tag. A savings account would not have saved that job, but it might have reminded me I was allowed to plan a life that didn’t start in April.
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The only account that has ever paid me back is the one with my own name on it.
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So here is the move, cut down to its smallest version. If opening a new account feels like a whole Saturday, rename the savings account you already have. Call it Savannah, or the trip, or the class, or whatever you postponed.
Then move $10 into it once. If $10 is tight this month, move $5. The amount is not the point. Your name on the receiving end is.
Behavior Over Time works on you too. Ten dollars every Friday is a record you keep with yourself, and it holds whether this story ends in reunion or in release. Release is a full outcome, and nobody can invoice you for it.
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Ask yourself
Answer on paper. None of these need him.
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What have you spent in the last twelve months trying to find out what he will do? |
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What would you name an account that saves for your life instead of his return? |
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Which bill would scare you most this winter, and how much would cover it? |
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One thing to do today
Rename your savings account after one thing you put off, then move $10 into it, or $5 if that is what this month allows.
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My money pays for my life, not his timeline.
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Monday morning there will be money sitting in an account with a name you chose. Small, yes. Also the first payment in a long time that stays yours.
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| Trust the timing. Keep becoming. |
| — Mara |
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P.S.
In August 2015 the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, and the $17.8 million restitution order with it. Two decades of promises that the money would come back, and the only one who ever ordered it returned was a federal judge.
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