A 30-year-old woman who stalked her alternative therapist for several months has been banned from contacting the shaman for five years. Cassidy Blyth became infatuated with Tarot card reader and shamanic practitioner Brian Anderson after visiting him to relieve her stress.
Blyth bombarded her therapist with phone calls and messages and told him she had fallen in love with him during their sessions. She continued to pester the alternative healer after being warned off and turned up uninvited in his garden with a package containing items including a map.
Mr Anderson, who conducted a number of counselling sessions with Blyth at his centre in Methven, Perthshire, eventually called in the police for help. He had previously advised Blyth, of Ibrox Street, Glasgow, to seek out "more robust" assistance for her mental health difficulties than he was qualified to provide.
Blyth admitted stalking Mr Anderson in Methven between 19 September 2020 and 3 January 2021 and causing him fear or alarm. She admitted repeatedly contacting him in the knowledge that any contact was unwanted, threatening to self-harm, and entering his home, loitering and leaving a package.
She also admitted breaching bail by repeatedly contacting Mr Anderson by phoning him and leaving voice messages between April 11 and July 24, 2021.
Fiscal depute Elizabeth Hodgson told Perth Sheriff Court: "The complainer operates sessions to assist people with stress and anxiety. She contacted him in April 2019 and initially these went well, with no concerns about her behaviour.
"However, in June he realised she may have difficulties which went beyond his skill level. He advised the accused of this and gave her contact details for a more robust therapy. After a number of months she made contact with him again."
Mr Anderson advised her not to contact him, but she then threatened to harm herself. She told him she had petrol and was going to set herself on fire.
"On September 19, he returned from a walk and the accused was in his rear garden holding a parcel. He asked her to leave and take the parcel with her. She left the parcel. It was seized but it didn't contain anything of note - just some small items and a map. She sent a letter apologising.
"In December 2020, he received emails from the accused telling him that she was in love with him. All of her emails were forwarded to the police."
She was arrested and quizzed at Govan police station, where officers asked why she had ignored Mr Anderson's pleas to be left alone. Blyth told them: "I did follow up his advice, but I couldn't get any help. I left him a voice mail. I think I was spiked. I wanted to give him gifts to apologise."
Miss Hodgson told the court that Mr Anderson had been left extremely distressed by Blyth's behaviour and wanted her to be made subject to a non-harassment order to protect him. Sheriff William Wood imposed an order banning her from having any contact with her victim for five years and placed her under supervision for 12 months.
He said: "Clearly you came into contact with Mr Anderson at a time when you were particularly low and looking for the strength you might have got from alternative medicine. Despite your optimism, that didn't work and you developed a fixation with Mr Anderson."
According to his website, Mr Anderson says: "I offer individual tarot therapy sessions as a therapeutic process, as well as Tarot Empowered Guidance. In the session we find ways to transform what is blocking you so that you can move through your life in a more integrated, creative, dynamic and empowered way.
"As you respond to this symbolic language in a session I invite your own insights and intuition while I listen and offer my knowledge intuition and experience with the tarot therapy process bringing guidance, insight, healing and empowerment.Woman banned from approaching her shamanic therapist after stalking him for months.
"In this process within the triangle of your intentions and the issues you wish to explore, the Tarot itself, me as a facilitator together we clear a way to a broader potential and awareness of yourself."
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