The Belushi kids are known for having stars in their eyes. There was John, who helped pioneer "Saturday Night Live" by starring as one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players; younger brother Jim, another S.N.L. alumnus who is making a respected name for himself starring in movies; and Marian, whose connection to the stars is spiritual: She is a psychic who practices from her home in Addison and with appearances around the area.

"I'm living my dream; it's what I always wanted to do," Marian said from her favorite spot at her round dining room table, where she does home readings for dozens of regular clients.

Marian is 46, the eldest of the four Belushis of Wheaton; only youngest brother Bill, happy as a heating and air conditioning installer in California, escaped the star connection. However, while her famous brothers have had audiences of millions, Marian is happy to play to an audience of one at a time.

"It's very mental and it's very physical," she explained. "Mentally, you have to have great concentration, and you have to block out your life, so I'm always focusing on this person and giving them my total energy. You concentrate, you draw energy from your inner self, your mental and physical energy, and you push that forward to pick up on other people, so it comes back to you. It's like a bouncing-ball effect."

Every Wednesday, Marian performs that feat over and over again while doing readings at the Pacific Club, a dance club in Lombard. Signs around her reading table introduce her as Marian Belushi Miles, and husband-manager Rodney is nearby to take care of appointments and financial matters. While the Belushi in her sign catches the eye, and people tend to stop to look at her for a minute until they catch those distinctive Belushi eyes, people who have their cards read are less interested in her family connections than in her supernatural connections.

"I definitely did it because she's a psychic," said Mary McDonell of Atlanta after her consultation. "A friend of mine had a reading and said it was fun. She (Miles) said I didn't like my stepmother and it's true. I think it's pretty genuine. I know part of it has to be salesmanship, but she knew some things a stranger wouldn't know."

Does coming from a family of obvious theatrical ability help her in her readings?

"I don't think so," Miles replied. "As a person, I'm very dramatic, I'm outgoing, I say what I think, just as a human being. If it comes across real dramatic and theatrical, I'm just being myself. I'm not putting on a show for people."

However, she's the first to admit that there are psychics who are not legitimate, a fact that sullies the image of those who, like Miles, honestly believe they have abilities and want to help people. "I don't want to be involved in 900 numbers," where so-called psychics do readings by phone, Miles said. "It has to be one-to-one in person. I think you can pick up (on the phone), but I don't think you're as accurate."

"Our main focus is to try to get people to come for private readings," added Rodney, who works full time as her manager. "It's a tough business, because a lot of people think it's phony, and that's a tough thing to fight. My wife would do it for free if we could."

Miles doesn't use tarot cards, feeling they represent the dark, satanic side of supernatural abilities. "I use regular cards," she said, "so they don't have any connotations except what I put on them. What I do is pick up on the person and the card at the same time. That's my style, what feels comfortable for me."

It also feels comfortable for a long list of regular clients, most of whom prefer the psychic-client privilege of confidentiality. Several, however, publicly thank their lucky stars that Miles is there for them, people like Debra McMichael, wife of Bears' defensive tackle Steve.

"We met through Jimmy (Belushi, a friend of Steve's)," McMichael recalled. "Marian gave me a reading for the first time this past Christmas, and she told me things about my family that nobody else would know, that I had told no one. She's very talented, she's gifted. Some people say they're gifted and they're not. I've had other readings, and they just tell a bunch of stuff that never comes true. Some of the things Marian told me came true, but I don't want to say what it is."

Does Steve get psychic help with Bears games?

"He's not really into that," Debra responded. "He accepts that (Marian) does it, and he believes in it, but he prefers to not have a reading. She said that Steve would stay with the Bears, though, and the Eagles wanted him real bad."

Jim Belushi came into Marian's psychic fold about the same time as Debra. When he was young, his sister predicted he would be rich, but Jim said, "I didn't believe her. I believe her all the time now. This Christmas she read for me for the first time. She kept saying she wanted to read for me, she had psychic ability, and I kept saying no she didn't, so I finally let her do one. She gave me a fantastic reading. Everything she said was true."

Belushi talked by phone from his home in California, but he frequently visits Chicago to see his son from a now-dissolved marriage and enjoys consulting with his sister, who's older by seven years.

"I usually ask her about girls," he said. "She won't give me a full reading, because she said she saw Mom's death in it when she did hers (Agnes Belushi died in 1989), so she won't do full readings for the family anymore. But she'll do questions, where you spread the cards on the table and ask things."

She also had an image-what she calls a flash-of John's death in 1982. "I was talking to him on the phone, having a good conversation about when we were kids, about my son, about life in general," she said, "and as I was talking to him I picked up on this flash that I wasn't going to see him in this life again. I told him, and he got real quiet. I started crying, and I couldn't hang up the phone. He told me, 'Remember me, you know what I'm about. I always love you from the bottom of my heart forever, you're my bestest sister,' which is what he used to always say to me when we were little."

He died from a drug overdose eight days later.

Miles shows obvious affection for those in her family, and talk of John, who was two years younger than she, both animates and saddens her.

"We had a real connection; we'd been together in a past life, so he and I were real, real close," she said with a catch in her voice.