PSYCHICS

When I was about eight years old my mum donned a large headscarf, equally enormous earrings, and looked into a crystal ball. I vividly remember this spectacle since she was performing a charade as a clairvoyant at the local school fete. It was a crude and rather comical caper, although people still paid to have their fortunes told. Later in life, I had my palms read on several occasions and mused over the general claptrap of a long, happy life with many children. In fairness as a broad statement, I guess this wasn’t too far off the mark, other than the second element being occasionally torpedoed by grief. In a nutshell, I wasn’t convinced about the possibility that any human being possesses the ability to communicate with the dead, let alone foresee the future. My mum had clearly demonstrated that a fair number of people enjoyed being duped and that it was no more than harmless fun.

Mainstream science echoed my obvious dismissal of this subject. I was still less convinced when I recalled my mum, dad, and uncle using a ouija board to successfully locate my grandma’s lost kettle. Indeed, how does one even go about losing a kettle? Anyway, in a more robust challenge to the notion of supernatural powers the National Geographic Channel conducted a most compelling experiment in 2015. Four volunteers, supervised by paranormal expert Mark Edwards, were encouraged to reach out to the spiritual world via the same apparatus that had magically located the AWOL kettle. One participant began to map out a seemingly convincing dialogue with ‘the other