I will not ask you any questions or want to know anything about you before a reading.

I'll ask you to get a pad of paper. At the top of the pad write down my name: Robert Hayes, my phone number: 415-651-4018, the date and the time of your reading. That's when you will call me at that number.

I used to say write down three or four questions. Now I say write down ten or fifteen questions. I don't want you to feel restricted by the number of questions, or that you have to have an arbitrary number of questions.

What is important is that your questions be as specific as possible. The more specific your question, the more detailed the resulting answers will be.

Between the time we set the appointment and the actual reading, take a look at your questions once or twice a day. Scratch one out, add another, break one into three. The order isn't particularly important, as I'll explain in a moment.

Do take some time and put some thought into your questions. There's nothing magical about writing them, you can type them if you wish. What is important is that you think about them and put them on paper. People have a remarkable facility to get 'lost in the moment' during a reading and completely forget what they wanted to ask, or to ask the same questions three times, forgetting that they've already asked it. If you write your questions down in advance you can avoid this and we won't waste your precious time.

When you call, I'll ask to hear your voice for a few minutes. I usually ask people to go to a window and describe something they see in detail.

Nope, you don't have to do anything special. No ointments, no rattles, no swinging of dead chickens (and I promise you I'll  never try to sell you a magic candle). A cold or sore throat won't change the outcome of the reading. Laryngitis may prove a problem. If it does, we can just reschedule.

It does help if you call from a regular hard-wired telephone if you have one available instead of a cell phone. Cordless home phones are usually OK. It has to do with the quality of the microphone on the phone. For best accuracy and recognition during the first part of the reading when I'm listening to you, I need to hear a lot of the high and low end frequencies of your voice.

Modern digital communications (cell phones, internet phones) often compress or cut off that segment of the voice. We can still do a reading, it just takes a few minutes longer for me to lock on. I sometimes describe it as the difference between seeing in black-and-white and color.

So many people only use cell phones these days that it is not uncommon for me to read for someone on a cell phone. The most common difficulty we experience in that case is getting good signal strength. If you're going to be using a cell phone for your reading, you might want to test the location where you'll be in advance of your appointment to make sure you have a good signal.

I'll be listening to the sound of your voice, not the words you say. I read for non-English speakers when there is a translator available, and I've read from coughs, laughter, and sneezes!

If English is your second language, I may ask you to speak briefly in your native language. When a person speaks in their native language, they speak richly with inflection, and cadence, and hidden in those spaces between the words and your individual phonemes are where the information about you resides that I hear.

After I've heard your voice for a few minutes, I'll describe the person I'm seeing and ask you to confirm that I have the right record. From there, a couple of things can happen.

People often call when they are in a stressful time in life, or experiencing anxieties. If that is made clear to me I may address that as an opening statement, describing the situation. Otherwise, we will go directly to your questions.

When we go to your questions, several different things can happen. I may ask you to restate your question. Sometimes it feels like we're on the target, but not quite on the bullseye. Different wording can focus the answer for me. Sometimes I will suggest the wording of the question to you. It's interesting. I can often sense the wording that will reveal a better quality answer, and I could ask it for you, but if I ask the question for you the quality of the answer will not be as good as if I hear the question in your voice.

Another thing that can happen is that the answer may coalesce slowly. In that case I will suggest we move on to other questions and return to that question. Either I will answer the question spontaneously later in the reading when the answer becomes clear, or we will return to the qustion at the end of the reading. So, the order in which you write your questions is not particularly important.

Another possibility is that you may be begin by asking a question on a topic, romance for example, when everything I see initially regards your career. In that case I will ask you if you have any career questions, and suggest that we address those first.

Keep your pad of paper with you during the reading to take notes. Questions will occur to you during the reading and you can write them down without breaking the flow of the reading.

Readings tend to segment themselves naturally. At the end of each section I will ask you if you understand everything we've covered, and if you have any questions about what we've covered so far. At the end of the reading I will ask you again if you have any addititional questions. I will speak with you until all of the information has come through, and we will answer all of your questions.

An average reading can run anywhere from fifty minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes. I just consider this an hour and budget accordingly on my schedule. I don't worry about concluding the reading until it gets to an hour and fifteen minutes in order to prevent it from running over into the next appointment. I need a few minutes to reset the recording equipment, and to clear my mind between readings.

1. I am not a medical doctor, thus I can not diagnose, nor prescribe. I believe in health and wellness and will answer all of your questions to the best of my ability, but I should not be considered an alternative to medical care.


2. I reserve the right to say "I don't know." I do not claim to know all and see all. A reading can cover anywhere from three months to thirty-five years to the rest of your life. I have no control over that. I have learned that when a person is particularly stressed the time period covered by a reading compresses to a shorter period, usually surrounding the immediate situation.

If you ask a question that is outside the boundaries of what I have seen, that's fine. The answer may come through just fine. It's rare, but in the event no answer comes through to a questoins of yours, I will be very careful to say "I have no answer to that question. There is no information coming through." This way a conversational 'yes' or 'no' from me will not be misinterpreted out of context as an affirmative or negative answer to your question.

All that having been said, next year will be thirty years since I began reading for the public.

I have heard it all. I am shock-proof.

What I haven't heard, I have seen in readings. So please, do not feel that you need to filter or censor your questions. I would much rather you ask what you wish to know than go away from a reading feeling that you did not get satisfaction from the experience.

Furthermore, readings are confidential. You will be the only person who receives your CD. And beyond that I don't tend to remember a reading more than about twenty minutes after it is over. And I'm very, very thankful for that.

I'll record the reading for you, and send it to you in the mail on a CD-ROM. It's all included in the fee. Keep your recording in a safe place. You'll want to refer to it in the future.

Sometimes our minds play tricks on us. We remember differently than we hear. Some people remember a phrase, some an inflection, some a meaning, others remember just a few words out of context.

That's why I go to the extra effort to record your reading and provide it to you. It's that important.

Clients call regularly to tell me about the interesting things they discovered when they listened to the recording again weeks or months after the reading took place. They find events that were foretold that did not catch their attention or stay in their minds because they were more concerned and calling about other things.

People often ask me if I use Tarot cards, a crystal ball or other tools to perform my readings. No. I use a Barcalounger (that's a reclining easy chair) and an eye shade!

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the process, or the way I work. Please feel free to ask when you make your appointment, or at any time.