Local psychic crosses over

One of Kansas City’s best-known and best-loved psychics, David Schneider died Tuesday after a long illness. The Pitch named Schneider as “Best Psychic” in the 2003 Best of Kansas City issue, although the tiny man with the very big mustache had, by that point, been giving professional readings for decades. His local fame grew out of numerous call-in radio show appearances and as the host of his own TV program, the lovably campy public-access show Psychic Voyages, which ran weekly from 1984 to 1996. That show was one of the most popular local public-access programs in the early days of cable TV in Kansas City and David took his role as producer and host very seriously. “I wear a new outfit for every taping,” he told me when I interviewed him in the late 1980s. “I buy it the day before the show tapes and I return it the next day.”

Schneider had a wicked sense of humor, but was always brutally candid about the unusual way he got his start as a psychic: A hairstylist by profession — Schneider worked for many years at the salon in the old Twin Oaks apartments — David was invited by friends, in the late 1960s, to play a gypsy at a Halloween bash hosted by a local bar. He used an upside-down glass light fixture as his “crystal ball” and proceeded to tell fortunes, saying whatever came to his mind. When a couple of the party guests told him that his reading was uncannily accurate, Schneider decided to seriously study psychic phenomenon and was one of the earliest members of Kansas City’s Psychical Research Society.

Like a character in a film or TV series, David Schneider saw ghosts (but not at the Hyatt Regency Hotel after the July 17, 1981 tragedy — although he looked for them), including meeting a prostitute poltergeist at The Writers Place during a seance in that building.

“Don’t be surprised if his spirit comes to visit you in the next few days,” a fellow psychic told me today.

Surprised? I’ll be looking for him! — Charles Ferruzza