{"id":4800,"date":"2011-11-11T10:52:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=4800"},"modified":"2011-11-11T10:52:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T10:52:59","slug":"cardiff-character-lee-petulengro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/11\/cardiff-character-lee-petulengro\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Lee Petulengro"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Gypsy Lee talks about his mystical life<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_4815\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a style=\"text-align: center;background-color: #f1f1f1\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4815\" title=\"Lee Petulengro\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4815\" title=\"Lee Petulengro\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj.jpg 480w, https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/11\/nologo_6_petulengro_big_oj-300x138.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lee Petulengro pictured at his stall, Mystic<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Lee Petulengro probably knows more about you than you do yourself.<\/p>\n<p>I meet <a href=\"http:\/\/romanygypsy.co.uk\/#\/home\/4538312675\">Lee<\/a>, Gypsy clairvoyant, psychic and medium, at his stall, Mystic, at Cardiff\u2019s Central Market. It\u2019s a tiny enclosed space, blocked off from the commercial activity outside by heavy red velvet curtains. Figurines of the saints are arranged on two small tables lit by candles, the only other light coming from a lamp on the small round table where he practises palmistry, tarot and astrology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t allow the clients to talk, I do all the talking. I\u2019m psychic, I don\u2019t need to ask questions. I pick up on it all as soon as they come inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe majority of people come to me with a problem\u201d, he says. \u201cIt can be various things, from love to money problems, health problems, family problems. A lot of people just come to contact the deceased.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A rich heritage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Aged 33, he lives, with his wife and five children, in a tight-knit Roma community. \u201cWe keep to our cultures of death and life,\u201d he says. \u201cWe only marry within our own culture as well. Some do marry out, but then they lose trust of the community, the respect of the community.\u201d He comes from a line of gypsy fortune tellers. His great grandfather was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sungreen.co.uk\/Viney_Hill\/Gypsy_King.html\">Xavier Petulengro<\/a>, &#8220;King of the Gypsies,&#8221;\u00a0who came to Britain from Romania and frequently broadcast on BBC radio\u00a0in the 1930s and 40s, and wrote a number of books on palmistry and astrology.<\/p>\n<p>Lee began learning his craft from a young age. \u201cWe\u2019re taught it from childhood. We encourage it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe cook coffee in a pot, and read what\u2019s left in the cup, you know. Very similar to what English people do with tea leaves,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Only so much can be learned, however. \u201cAstrology is a science of the occult, palmistry is a science of the occult as well, so they\u2019re all sciences which are taught,\u201d Lee says. \u201cBut then you\u2019ve got the intuition or sixth sense, the sense all related to the person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Does he see ghosts? \u201cI might actually feel a spirit, I might hear a spirit, and see spiritual symbols,\u201d he says. \u201cWe believe, as gypsies, that spirits communicate in a symbolic language. For example, if I\u2019m talking to a client and for some reason I see a pink cloth on the table, the spirit is telling me they\u2019ve lost a child, it\u2019s a girl they\u2019ve lost. They work in symbols, more than actually showing themselves to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How do people react to the readings he gives, I ask him. \u201cMost people go away upset, because they don\u2019t like to face the truth and it\u2019s emotional for them,\u201d he says. It seems that for some people, consulting the spirit world can become an addiction. \u201cA lot of people, even when they go away upset, when they didn\u2019t like what they heard, they always return when they come right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A misunderstood craft<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I ask Lee if he can tell his own future. \u201cI do astrology for myself, of course. And I see all the parts that are going to affect me. Before I do anything I look at the chart, to see where the moon is,\u201d he says, and goes on to relate how he accurately predicted the date of his father-in-law\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a misconception, Lee says, that what he does is witchcraft. He is in fact a practising Catholic, and he tells me that he distances himself from the dark arts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know black magic does exist, and evil spirits. I believe very strongly. And I believe that people can put the evil eye on you as well, that\u2019s why I have so much protection, you see,\u201d he says, gesturing to the saints figurines next to him. \u201cThe curses are very powerful\u201d, he says, crossing himself. \u201cAll round it goes on. You\u2019ve got a lot of people into secret societies that wish harm on people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rising above the fakery<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Business, he says, is good. \u201cI have a lot of Asian clients; they\u2019re very much into astrology and numerology,\u201d he says. Lee also writes for a number of magazines both here and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>There are, Lee admits, a number of people in the business who try to exploit people\u2019s beliefs. I mention the recent case of Sally Morgan, a psychic who, it was reported by several <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2041787\/Psychic-Sally-defends-integrity-denies-getting-information-man-backstage.html\">newspapers<\/a>, was fed information about audience members during a live show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately some mediums are fake, and they do work on body language and they ask questions and they fish around, you know,\u201d he says, adding that he looks down on such people for the damage they do to his profession. \u201cPeople are quick to judge and condemn,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: 11px;line-height: 17px\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gypsy Lee talks about his mystical life Lee Petulengro probably knows more about you than you do yourself. I meet Lee, Gypsy clairvoyant, psychic and medium, at his stall, Mystic, at Cardiff\u2019s Central Market. It\u2019s a tiny enclosed space, blocked off from the commercial activity outside by heavy red velvet curtains. Figurines of the saints are arranged on two small tables lit by candles, the only other light coming from a lamp on the small round table where he practises [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":4822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1084,1085,1086,1087,1088,1089,1090,273,1091],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-no-logo","tag-astrology","tag-cardiff-market","tag-clairvoyant","tag-fortune-telling","tag-gypsy","tag-palmistry","tag-petulengro","tag-religion","tag-tarot"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: Lee Petulengro - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2011\/11\/11\/cardiff-character-lee-petulengro\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Lee Petulengro - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gypsy Lee talks about his mystical life Lee Petulengro probably knows more about you than you do yourself. I meet Lee, Gypsy clairvoyant, psychic and medium, at his stall, Mystic, at Cardiff\u2019s Central Market. It\u2019s a tiny enclosed space, blocked off from the commercial activity outside by heavy red velvet curtains. 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