From Fortune Telling to History

For some it may seem strange to see the worlds of a professional historian and the metaphysical combined, but here I am! Those who knew me in high school (a few decades ago) might remember me giving a demonstration in my Public Speaking class on Palm Reading and then students lining up after my presentation in order to have their palms read! I’ve always been fascinated with historical fortune-telling, astrology and all that “woo-woo” stuff. It runs in my family. My Great-Aunt Alice was a known “table-tipper,” read cards, and gave psychic readings starting in the 1930s and 1940s until she passed. My grandmother was a practitioner in the Christian Scientist religion. For those of you unfamiliar with that title, practitioners are those who, for lack of a better term, perform energy healing on parishioners.

My second cousin, Johnny Ahern was a professional astrologist and his wife, Doris Chase Doane was a world renowned astrologer. Born in 1913, she began her study in astrology in 1936. By 1995 she had over 1 million copies of her books in circulation, comprised of 71 titles translated into five languages and over 2,500 articles in 91 magazines. She was elected president of the American Federation of Astrologers in 1979 and worked hard to ensure that astrologers were properly trained and certified in their work. She was an ordained minister in the Church of Light and wrote several of their books and manuals on astrology and divination with their proprietary Church of Light tarot deck. This deck is still available today as the “Brotherhood of Light” deck and is available in my shop.

My family has some strong connections to the metaphysical, but I also grew up with a strong influence of the scientific perspective. That can’t really be avoided when your father is a rocket scientist. No, really, he is! My father, John Wickman, has been at the forefront of research, design and fabrication of cutting edge rocket fuel and defense work for decades. From the design of the MX Missile to fuel designed specifically to burn in the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere, he has excelled where others refused to try.

The combination of both of those influences led me to nurture an interest in the metaphysical while also approaching it with a data driven perspective. After dealing with numerous health issues I was struggling to find anything that would help. Doctor after doctor and treatment after treatment were not helping. Eventually, I got to the point of “what the hell?” let’s try this Reiki stuff. Something has to work, right?

I took my first class on Usui Reiki in 2016 and to my own surprise, it was helping. I continued the classes and received my Reiki Master certification that same year. A few years later I was officially diagnosed with a very rare autoimmune disease called Relapsing Polychondritis. Although the exact cause of the flare-ups is not known, mine seemed to be triggered by stress. Energy work became essential to relieving that stress and keeping the flare-ups down.

And what was so stressful to be causing those autoimmune flare-ups? Why, the museum field, of course! Prior to all this, I’d been a museum director in the Palm Springs area of California, moved back to Wyoming, completed my Master’s in History, published my first history book “Lost Forts of Casper,” been working at the Wyoming Veteran’s Museum as the assistant curator (and then laid off due to budget cuts), starting Wickman Historical Consultants and doing contract work for museums, and also for the National Parks Service at Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania. And that’s just the highlights.

When Covid hit in 2020 I signed up for a class taught by Sarah Lemos called Pathways to Spirit. It was definitely the most “woo-woo” thing I’d done, but I was looking for more information (data) on energy work, Chakras, crystals…all that stuff. Her class was extremely informative and a gave a good introduction to a variety of natural healing methods that I was very interested in.

Also at that same time (December of 2020) I officially began a determined effort to research and write a biography of Kansas Senator Preston B. Plumb. I’d discovered him back in 2012 while researching my master’s thesis, and had wanted to write a biography of him, but I’d tabled the project because there was just too much else going on. By December of 2020 I decided I would intentionally set aside the time to do this project and it began a multi-year adventure of trips to Kansas and meeting some of the most incredible people. “The Forgotten Senator: The Life and Character of Preston B. Plumb” was release in March of 2023, and it was only possible through the support of not only my family, but my “found family” of descendants of Preston and Carrie Plumb, as well as descendants of the soldiers of his 11th Kansas Cavalry. I will be forever grateful for their support and belief in my project. They welcomed this historian from Wyoming with open arms and I am so happy to be keeping in touch with them today as I continue to do more work to raise public awareness for the incredible person that Preston B. Plumb was. I am on a Plumb crusade!

During all of that, I spent 10 years as board member of the Fort Caspar Museum Association, with the majority of that time spent as vice president. During that time I worked on countless projects for the museum, but my personal goal and project was the Lest We Forget Commemorative Cemetery project which has installed 49 headstones to the original eleven honoring fallen soldiers from the fort whose remains have been lost to the prairie. My love and appreciation for our nation’s veterans came from my family–which has a number of veterans from every conflict from the American Revolution through the Korean War. This was further amplified by working at the Wyoming Veterans Museum and my thesis on the military forts of Casper, Wyoming. I am proud to say that the Fort Caspar commemorative cemetery project is due to be completed in June of 2027.

If you’ve read this far, you may be thinking, “Wow, Johanna, you’ve done a lot!” And that is definitely true, and I could not have kept myself going without meditation, energy work, and the “woo woo” as a support system. I’ve always felt a little conflicted about being a professional historian who’s done contract work around the country, published books, and been interviewed for documentaries, who also has an interest in a field that many other historians would likely chuckle at. But, to each their own, and this is something that I find interesting and has helped me over the years.

In April of 2025 I started the Healing Winds Emporium as an online store for things that I enjoy in that metaphysical field. I also have a large (and growing) collection of antique and vintage fortune telling books, cards and more going back to 1863. I am working on creating YouTube videos showing those items and telling viewers the history and stories behind them.

Thank you for reading this far, and thank you for taking the time to check out this site. Above this section, you’ll see links to three different websites you can visit depending on which interest you may have with me. For museum consulting services, visit Wickman Historical Consultants. For information on Preston B. Plumb or to purchase “The Forgotten Senator” or “Lost Forts of Casper” visit the Preston B. Plumb link. And finally, if you’d like to go shopping for metaphysically themed gifts, visit Healing Winds Emporium. I will be adding readings from my collection of historic fortune telling items soon!