I didn't believe in psychics until I met Mr. Frank Castellano.
Back in March, a viral TikTok post about another Nashville medium sent locals flooding the comments with recommendations. One name surfaced again and again.
Frank Castellano, an East Nashville psychic-medium with a years-long waitlist, became the subject of a story I reported earlier this year.
Before our formal interview, I arranged to sit in on one of his readings. Only an hour before the appointment, I received an email that Castellano's client had canceled their session due to illness. Instead, Castellano offered to give me a reading.
With skepticism, I agreed.
I rolled up to his East Nashville office in March, which was covered in periwinkle and indigo decor, crystals and plants.
For the next hour, Castellano described relatives, family dynamics and personal details that just weren't online.
Afterward, I called my father to compare notes. Several details left him stunned.
For this week's "Audrey Off Broadway," a column where we dive into the people, places and trends shaping Nashville's culture right now, we're revisiting the strangest assignment I've worked on all year.
As Halloween approaches, let's return to Castellano's captivating story. To see which of his predictions came true for me, read on.
Meet Nashville's psychic-medium with a 2-year waitlist
It all starts with a red light. When Frank Castellano sees it flicker in his head, he has a message to deliver.
Whether he's in line at the grocery store or at a church gathering, conveying the memo to its intended source is vital. He has his spiel ready:
"Hi, my name is Frank. I'm a psychic-medium. I don't need any of your money. I actually don't want any of your energy, but I just have a quick message if you have time."
Psychics see the future; mediums act as a communicator between the dead and the living. Castellano sees himself as a little of both.
While some people turn him away, many accept his impromptu services. Usually, he delivers a dispatch from someone's departed loved one. Maybe they're at peace, want to offer forgiveness or issue a warning.
"Once I deliver that message, whatever red light I have goes off," Castellano told me. "You've done your job, you're good to go, and I move on."
Roughly 48% of Americans believe in "psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body," according to Gallup data.
A slightly smaller percentage, 39%, believe in ghosts, or that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations. Only 26% believe in clairvoyance, the ability to tell the future.
Despite the data, Castellano has become a trusted spiritual confidant for Nashvillians, including many music industry professionals, throughout his 15 years in town.
And his schedule is packed. For years now, Castellano has had a two-year waitlist, seeing about 1,000 clients a year.
Out of his East Nashville studio, The Spirit Chrysalis, Castellano conducts readings and energy healing sessions for $200 and $225 for an hour, respectively.
One client, celebrity makeup artist and podcast host Kelly Henderson, first heard Castellano's name and skillset mentioned on a flight to the ACMs.
At a reading, Castellano summoned her grandfather immediately. He got it all right, even down to the detail of how her grandfather would screw in a lightbulb. Grandpa was an engineer, Henderson said.
"I busted into tears, but happy tears of reconnecting with my grandfather," she said. The experience propelled Henderson on a spiritual journey.
Nashville travel agent Tyler Diehl said a reading with Castellano changed him completely. "It was confirmation to me that there is something else," Diehl said.
He helped bring peace to Diehl and his brother after their mother died in a car accident. "It was honestly like I sat there for an hour and talked to my mother," Diehl said.
Both clients recorded their readings. And, after listening back years later, they have both seen various predictions pan out.
Months later, did Frank Castellano predict my future?
Castellano offered predictions about my future, too. Like his other clients, I had recorded my reading. Ahead of writing this column, I re-listened to the session.
When I visited Castellano, his eyes darted back and forth while he stared off into space.
He said that he communicated with my father's father. Castellano spoke about long-gone relatives and somehow, he knew the skeletons in my family's history, from mental health crises to infidelity.
Beyond that, he knew my mom was "intense" (like mother like, daughter!), but has a soft spot for rescuing animals. Since our session, my mother has indeed welcomed home a pup named Jesse via the American Brittany Rescue.
He foresaw a relative getting sick (it happened), and predicted which family member would take care of her (also correct).
He saw California in my parents' future (hasn't happened), and said my brother would pursue music (he's aiming for pharmacy school).
My major life struggles would be in the romance department, (ugh! he was right), and this would be my year of finding balance (I'm getting there).
While a few of his comments were out of left field, most still hold some level of truth.
"A reading is an art, not a science," Castellano told me in an interview at his studio after our reading.
Like most artists in Music City, Castellano has been rehearsing for years.
He isn't always spot-on, and he owns that. "An artist can train and hone, but you might have that one bad show," he said. If, for some reason, he can't connect with someone, he will issue a refund.
"The thing I like the most is helping people understand their spiritual lessons. You are here. Your destiny is not what you came here to be, it's what you came here to learn. How is that lesson showing up in your life?"
Castellano said the biggest misconception about psychics is that "people think we're evil, that there's something malevolent that's working through us, which is not at all true."
To him, Christianity and mediumship are not mutually exclusive. Castellano even attends an interfaith church.
But in the Bible Belt, his approach to spirituality carries a stigma. Castellano used to feel the need to help change peoples' misconceptions. Now, not so much.
"I'm very clear that my job is to give you information that's going to help you," he said. "If you want to take it, great."
Frank Castellano is 'constantly at borders'
Castellano was born into a Mexican-Italian family in Los Angeles. He said the gift has traveled down six generations of his mother's side of the family, and that he was intuitive from age 6.
After a family member and her two kids died in an apartment fire in L.A., he remembers seeing figures at a family gathering and starting to cry.
"Luckily, my aunt was there," he said. "We don't have the same gifts, but we have similar gifts. She knew what was going on with me."
But as far as the psychic ability? "I just knew that I knew things before other people knew them."
He didn't think he had a special skill, he just knew other people didn't see the world the way he did. It was almost odd to Castellano. "I'm like, 'How do you not see this? How do you not know that?'"
When he was 13, Castellano began offering tarot readings, first at school, and then at a store in California.
"My aunt always said people need the show," he said. So he turned to the 78-card deck that originated as a 15th-century European card game. Now, they're used for spiritual guidance.
"I was 17, still going to school, working at McDonald's, working at Hollywood Video, and I did not want to do readings," Castellano said.
He'd dealt with a few stalkers and he was ready to quit. After school, he joined the military, serving from 1999 to 2003.
Castellano trained in Georgia and was stationed in Camp Bonifas in South Korea, located near the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He was briefly at Clarksville's Fort Campbell, and later in Iraq near the Kuwait border, working in satellite communications.
In the military, Castellano would perform land-healing ceremonies in war-zones.
"I'm constantly at borders," he said. "If it's not the border of North and South Korea, it's the border of Iraq, it's the border of being a son of immigrants. It's the border of having to try to explain to people that are Christian that I believe in God."
Following an honorable discharge, Castellano returned to Clarksville and rediscovered his passion for readings. Castellano moved to Nashville in 2009 after meeting his husband.
Since then, his business has taken off without any outside advertising, with most clients finding him through word of mouth. He does four to six readings a day, and "it can be exhausting."
Castellano said he doesn't Google people beforehand, but meditates on them.
"When I'm looking at blank space, I will start to get information from whoever. I'll start to have a conversation inside of my head. 'Is it a man or is it a woman? Is it about their family? Is it a health issue?' And I will start to have symbols."
For example, a big hat represents Texas, a white palm, South Carolina. Blood means family.
Castellano then "follows a line of energy." If the line is broken or blocked, he interprets the meaning. "I can get a whole picture very quickly about what's going on," he added.
"I can't turn it off," he said. "I am always feeling things all the time, 100%. When I leave here, I tune it down."
Castellano said that he thinks more people are spiritually gifted than they know. Anybody can do what he does, it just starts with learning how to listen.
"Your loved ones always want to talk to you," he said.
"Your loved ones want to let you know that they are fine and they are safe. And it's funny that we worry about them when they worry about us."
Other Nashville psychics, tarot readers and spiritual shops
To learn more about Frank Castellano, visit thespiritchrysalis.com.
If you're intimidated by his waitlist, Nashville's spiritual scene stretches far beyond one medium.
Across the city, tarot readers, crystal shops and other psychic-mediums are building devoted followings.
Here's a list:
- Dawn Hiruko: Offers psychic-medium readings, loved-one connections, Reiki, mentoring and past-life work from Old Hickory.
- Louise Ohlwein: A medium, not a psychic, who frames her work through Christianity and discernment of spirits. She works out of Hendersonville.
- Laura Cross (Nashville Psychic Center): The center has been operating for more than three decades and offers spiritual coaching, relationship guidance and healing services.
- Heather Dawn: She blends tarot, intuition and psychic guidance, and appears regularly at events, parties and private sessions.
- Karen Linnae: Focuses on intuitive tarot readings centered on clarity, life transitions and self-reflection.
Spiritual / metaphysical shops:
- Cosmic Connections (Eighth Avenue South): Open since 2002, the shop sells tarot decks, crystals, and books, plus offers in-house readings, energy work and classes.
- The Cosmic Closet Psychic Readings & Gift Shop (Downtown Nashville): The shop offers psychic readings and sells metaphysical retail.
- Sapphire & Sage (East Nashville): The crystal and ritual shop leans into contemporary witchcraft aesthetics.
- Nashville Crystal Store (Berry Hill area): The crystal and gemstone shop has a large inventory of stones and metaphysical items.
- Mystical Heart Spiritual Center (Mt. Juliet): The center offers tarot readings, mediumship, Reiki, classes and spiritual supplies.
- AromaG's Botanica (Donelson): The hoodoo, folk magic and metaphysical shop offers psychic readings, tarot decks, candles, herbs and crystals.
If you'd rather try your hand at reading tarot cards yourself, award-winning Nashville illustrator Jessica Roux creates her own decks.
Whether you believe or not, happy haunting, Nashville. May your October be just spooky enough.
Audrey Gibbs is a 26-year-old music and culture journalist at The Tennessean. This is her brand new column, Audrey Off Broadway, about culture in Nashville.
Have an idea for a piece? Reach her atagibbs@tennessean.com or on Instagram at @audreyraegibbs.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: I visited Nashville's most in-demand psychic. Here's what happened.
