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I've been feeling guilty toward Nancy Reagan.

I wasn't kind when I heard of her involvement with astrology. I dismissed it as flaky, made jokes about a White House controlled by psychics. But in the last few weeks, on a visit to India, I got sucked into the supernatural myself.

I could make excuses, invoke the "when in Rome..." defense, tell you that half the people in India are clairvoyants and the other half go to them, so why not?

But most of my family and friends don't. We believe in reason and scientifically provable fact.

So how did I come to be sitting cross-legged on the floor of a palmist's ramshackle New Delhi apartment as he inspected my left hand, shook his head, clucked and fell into a gloomy silence?

The holder of my fate was a short, plump, mustachioed man who wore square glasses and a pink shirt. He spoke mostly in Hindi. His apartment, with its flaking pink paint, was up several steep flights of stone steps with no guard rail. I had taken my mother, and later, we would both dream of falling off a cliff.

When he finally spoke, the palmist said not to be afraid to ask him anything. Easy for him to say.

Here's what I got:

I'd have a solitary, angry life followed by an early death. Before that, I'd live far from my children and never amount to much. I would have friendships, but, in his words, to no "advantage." There would be travel and enough money, but ultimately, "You will not be satisfied."

I already wasn't. "Don't you see anything good?" I persisted.

He shook his head. "I can't see anything great in your future," he replied.

I'm sure there is a correct way to respond - like remind yourself you don't believe in this stuff, that you just went on a lark. But you still lie awake at night.

I'd gotten readings as a child in India from some of the many lay people claiming to have special powers. One predicted I would die young, so I passed my 21st birthday with relief. In America, my friends and I sometimes go to tarot card readers for fun. Most are tactful.

The palmist said his gift comes from Lord Shiva, but that their connection ends at noon every day. It was about 12:20 when we finished, so maybe that explained it.

As word about my experience spread in Delhi, friends scoffed, "What did you expect?" One offered a psychiatrist's name. Another made me an appointment with an astrologer.

If you're in that deep, might as well get a second opinion. The astrologer came to the house in a suit and carrying a laptop, which he used to examine the planetary alignments at precise times. He was an Ayurvedic doctor who started reading charts after noticing some patients weren't getting cured.

He believes a person's "karma," or destiny, is preordained but can be influenced by actions.

I want to believe we control our own fates. But ever since some uncontrollable bad turns in my life, I secretly worried I have bad karma. That's why I went.

The astrologer had been told nothing about me, but was eerily, uncannily on target on almost everything. He knew about my profession and my husband's death. He knew about issues facing my sister, my sons and my parents. He told me things I've told almost no one about.

He said I would have a fairly long, happy and fulfilled life, if I can resolve one internal conflict - he called it a "manufacturing defect" - between the need for autonomy and interdependence.

I was in awe.

So how to process this? Here's where I am: Though we are, for the most part, responsible for our own fates, there will always be some things that don't appear to have a rational explanation - even accounting for the power of suggestion and the ability of a clever reader to build on your reactions.

Faith - whether astrology, religion, superstition or ESP - has its place, as long as you're clear that's what it is and keep it personal. I would no sooner bring an astrologer into a public-school classroom than a proponent of Intelligent Design.

On the other hand, if you were looking for odds to prove the legitimacy of this, you could find them. After all, there's a 100 percent chance one of the two men I saw was correct.

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