A Day with the Witch Doctor

The doctor’s office lies beyond a battered blue gate, beneath a battered blue porch, behind a beautiful garden.

Inside giant, torn pleather chairs wait to engulf and cradle you while you wait. A fan whirs overhead. Beneath the swinging half doors you watch patients’ feet twitch beside His.

This is what purgatory feels like.

“Come, come,” he calls.

You enter.

I entered.

“First time?” he asks.

I nodded, and it began.

I was immediately impressed by the correct spelling of my name. When I told him my age, he was shocked—physically gasping as he jotted the modest number down. “Old soul, ancient being” he concluded with a wink.

I like it when safe men wink at me.

“Yes,” I teased, “I’m remarkably mature for my age.” We laughed.

Thus the fun began. For being a “witch doctor,” Dr. Raichura is remarkably qualified. When I told him I was from Boston (but quickly explained I lived in Paris, which drew questions about how I actually lived in India, which I insisted I don’t), he told me he spent six years there studying. “And teaching,” he said, “at BU.”

I smiled. “That’s where I went to school.”

“I taught,” he clarified. “Medical campus. Different.”

It was still of comfort.

He’s a playful man and I enjoyed our jokes. He has the same wise laugh as the Dalai Lama. But beneath the silly façade he had a mission.

“You’ve had great traumas. Two. Now you are stuck,” he explained. Traumas at 7 and 20, he guessed.

He guessed right.

The story went on… but it sounded strikingly familiar to the stories I’d heard of those who’d seen him long ago. He game me little direction, and my heart began to sink. “You are very spiritual. Very special. Use this gift well.” He’s not the first to say so. We spoke of family, and his readings were remarkably accurate but not enlightening. We spoke of love and he told me nothing I didn’t already know. We spoke of the future and he spun broad stories impossible not to come true.

His only advice was to stay away from the burden of others’ expectations and to nurture my spiritual self.


I left impressed by his intuition but disappointed. I learned nothing new.

“But what did you expect?” Thomas asked as we left.

“Answers.” Obviously.

I was hoping I had found an easy way out…a loophole like so many I’ve leveraged in the past.