"WHO ARE YOU ???"
"WHAT ARE YOU?"
Confessions of a Psychic
Or:
“Why I Still Haven’t Won the Bloody Lottery???”
There are three questions I have been asked more times than I could possibly count:
Who are you?
What are you?
Perhaps the strangest of all:
What’s it like to be you?
That last one always amuses me.
Because I have absolutely no idea what it is like not to be me.
I have never woken up as the milkman.
I have never spent a Wednesday afternoon being Doris from accounts.
Despite several mornings when I have looked in the mirror and wondered precisely who the hell was staring back at me, I have so far remained stubbornly myself.
But when you tell people you are psychic, apparently simply being yourself is no longer sufficient.
Suddenly you become a walking public information service for the mysteries of the Universe.
People want answers.
Lots of answers.
Preferably accurate ones.
Preferably immediately.
Preferably including six numbers between 1 and 59.
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SO… WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE PSYCHIC?
That is probably the question I am asked most often.
I think people expect me to say something wonderfully mystical.
Perhaps:
“Every morning I awaken as the silver mist of eternity drifts through my consciousness while departed Tibetan monks whisper the secrets of creation into my left ear.”
Sorry.
Usually I wake up needing a cup of tea.
Being psychic does not mean spending twenty-four hours a day wandering around in a supernatural fog.
I don’t float six inches above the pavement.
I don’t have celestial background music.
There isn’t a permanent queue of Victorian ghosts standing beside my bed waiting for office hours to begin.
Being psychic—at least as I understand and experience it—is much more ordinary and much stranger than that.
It is noticing.
Feeling.
Listening.
Sometimes knowing something without understanding how you know it.
Sometimes receiving an impression that makes absolutely no sense until much later.
Sometimes getting something astonishingly right.
Sometimes getting it spectacularly wrong.
That last bit is important.
Because the moment somebody uses the word psychic, society seems to abandon every normal standard it applies to human beings.
Doctors can be wrong.
Scientists can be wrong.
Economists can be wrong.
Meteorologists can tell us there is a ten percent chance of rain and we can spend the afternoon swimming down the High Street.
Politicians can be wrong with almost Olympic consistency.
But apparently a Psychic is expected to achieve a standard somewhere between God and Google.
One mistake?
FAKE!
Which brings us rather conveniently to another question.
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WHY DO YOU GET THINGS WRONG?
Because I am HUMAN.
There.
That didn’t take long, did it?
We could probably finish the article here and all go for lunch.
But the question deserves more attention because it exposes one of the greatest misunderstandings surrounding psychic ability.
People often imagine psychic perception as though someone is watching television.
The Psychic closes their eyes.
A giant celestial screen appears.
Picture quality: 4K.
Sound: Dolby Surround.
Date, time & postcode conveniently displayed at the bottom.
Wouldn’t that be useful?
Unfortunately, whatever psychic perception may ultimately prove to be, it doesn’t usually seem to behave like that.
It can arrive as fragments.
Images.
Feelings.
Words.
Emotions.
Symbols.
Physical sensations.
Sudden thoughts.
Memories that don’t feel like memories.
An overwhelming impression that something matters without knowing precisely why it matters.
Then comes the dangerous part.
Interpretation.
The interpretation is performed by a human brain.
That brain has memories.
Expectations.
Language.
Culture.
Fear.
Hope.
Bias.
Experience.
Occasionally hasn’t had enough sleep.
Therefore there may be a difference between the information received and the meaning assigned to it.
Imagine somebody hands you one piece from a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle.
It’s blue.
What are you looking at?
The sky?
The sea?
A blue dress?
A car?
A parrot?
A particularly unfortunate wallpaper choice?
You don’t know.
You have one fragment.
Psychic information can sometimes feel rather like that.
Anyone claiming absolute infallibility deserves questioning.
Not because psychic experiences must therefore be false.
But because certainty itself can be dangerous.
Perhaps one of the most important sentences any psychic can learn is:
“I don’t know.”
There is tremendous freedom in those three words.
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DO YOU SEE DEAD PEOPLE?
Ah !!!
The classic.
Thank you, Hollywood.
The answer is less dramatic than people hope.
Experiences associated with people who have died vary enormously.
Some people describe visual images.
Others describe voices.
Others receive names, memories, smells, sensations or emotions.
Some simply describe a powerful sense of presence.
Sometimes?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
That is another thing people find difficult to understand.
Psychic ability doesn’t necessarily operate like turning on a kitchen tap.
You cannot always command:
“Right then, Auntie Mabel. Three o’clock. Get yourself down here.”
If consciousness survives death—and notice the word if, because intellectual humility is important—then we are dealing with one of humanity’s greatest unanswered questions.
Nobody should cheapen that mystery by pretending we possess all the answers.
I have experiences.
Others have experiences.
Millions of human beings throughout history have reported experiences.
Those experiences deserve investigation.
They do not automatically constitute proof of every explanation we attach to them.
I think that distinction matters.
Wonder and scepticism are not enemies.
They are actually rather good drinking companions.
One says:
“What if?”
The other says:
“How do we know?”
Humanity needs both.
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CAN YOU GIVE ME THE LOTTERY NUMBERS?
Of course.
4, 17, 23, 31, 42 & 56.
There you are.
Now, before anybody remortgages the house, I MADE THOSE UP.
Because this question follows Psychics around like a determined little dog.
“If you’re Psychic, tell me the lottery numbers.”
Its equally irritating cousin:
“If you’re Psychic, why haven’t you won the lottery?”
Excellent question.
I WISH I BLOODY KNEW.
Believe me, if Psychic ability reliably produced winning lottery numbers, there would be no psychic fairs.
There would be no £20 readings.
There would be no little shops selling crystals, incense and suspiciously expensive candles.
Psychics would own Switzerland.
The assumption behind the lottery question is that psychic ability means unlimited access to all future information.
But why should it?
Human sight exists.
Can you see everything?
Human hearing exists.
Can you hear a conversation happening in Tokyo?
Memory exists.
Can you remember every breakfast you have ever eaten?
Intelligence exists.
Can you solve every mathematical problem?
A faculty can exist without being unlimited.
Indeed, every human faculty we know is limited.
So why would psychic perception be different?
Perhaps the future isn’t a completed book waiting to be read.
Perhaps it is a field of probabilities.
Perhaps choices matter.
Perhaps billions of decisions continually alter what comes next.
Perhaps some events become increasingly probable while others remain fluid.
Or perhaps our understanding of time itself is woefully primitive.
We don’t know.
Which is far more interesting than pretending we do.
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DO YOU TELL PEOPLE BAD NEWS?
This is where being Psychic stops being entertaining.
Because there is an enormous difference between having an impression and deciding what you should do with it.
Words have consequences.
Especially when spoken by somebody another person regards as having unusual insight.
Tell somebody:
“I think something terrible is going to happen.”
What have you accomplished?
Maybe nothing terrible happens.
But perhaps you’ve just given them six months of anxiety.
They might avoid traveling.
Cancel opportunities.
Become suspicious of loved ones.
Interpret every headache as catastrophe.
Fear every telephone call.
You haven’t predicted disaster.
You may have created suffering.
That is why ethics matter.
A Psychic should never forget the psychological power of suggestion.
People often come for readings when they are vulnerable.
Bereaved.
Heartbroken.
Confused.
Lonely.
Frightened.
Searching for reassurance.
Searching for direction.
Sometimes searching for permission to make a decision they have already made.
That creates responsibility.
If I sense difficulty ahead, my job should not be to terrify somebody.
It should be to help them navigate uncertainty.
There is an enormous difference between:
“I see terrible health problems.”
&
“If you’re worried about your health, please speak to a doctor.”
One pretends to diagnose.
The other behaves responsibly.
Psychic insight should never replace medicine, law, financial expertise or common bloody sense.
Anybody claiming otherwise should concern us.
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“I DON’T BELIEVE IN PEOPLE LIKE YOU.”
I love this one.
Not:
“I don’t believe Psychic abilities exist.”
No.
“I don’t believe in people like you.”
I usually feel tempted to look down at myself.
Touch my arms.
Check my pulse.
“Well, this is awkward. I was reasonably certain I existed when I got up this morning.”
But beneath the comedy lies a perfectly legitimate position.
People don’t have to believe in psychic phenomena.
Why should they?
Scepticism is healthy.
Blind belief isn’t particularly useful.
But neither is blind disbelief.
There is a peculiar habit humans have developed where uncertainty makes us uncomfortable.
We desperately want two boxes:
TRUE.
FALSE.
Put everything in one.
Quickly.
But some of the most interesting questions in existence remain stubbornly between the boxes.
What is consciousness?
Why are we conscious?
What exactly happens when we die?
Why do people report near-death experiences?
Why do humans across radically different cultures report mystical experiences?
Why do some people apparently know things they shouldn’t reasonably know?
Are all such experiences coincidence?
Memory errors?
Pattern recognition?
Fraud?
Subconscious inference?
Telepathy?
Something else?
Perhaps different cases have different explanations.
That possibility seems strangely unpopular.
We want one enormous answer.
Maybe reality isn’t courteous enough to provide one.
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“YOU’RE DOING THE DEVIL’S WORK!”
Ah !!! yes.
The Devil.
Poor fellow must have an extraordinarily large HR department considering everything attributed to him.
Cards?
Devil.
Astrology?
Devil.
Mediumship?
Devil.
Ouija board?
Definitely Devil.
Rock music?
Apparently Devil.
Dancing?
Depends which century you’re living in.
Women having opinions?
Historically, also suspicious.
Human beings have a long tradition of labelling unfamiliar things evil.
Fear loves a costume.
Religion has sometimes provided a very impressive wardrobe.
There are biblical passages traditionally interpreted as condemning divination, mediums and attempts to communicate with the dead.
That is simply true.
People who take those scriptures as divine commandments are entitled to follow them.
If their faith tells them not to consult a Psychic, then they shouldn’t consult one.
Simple.
What they are not entitled to do is use their belief as permission to abuse another human being.
There is a distinction between:
“My Religion teaches me not to practise this.”
&
“Therefore you are evil.”
The first is faith.
The second is judgement.
History contains enough examples of what happens when humans convince themselves that God has personally authorised their hatred.
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“THE BIBLE SAYS YOU ARE EVIL!”
Actually, people say this more often than the Bible does.
Scripture contains prohibitions against particular practices.
Interpretation has varied enormously across centuries, denominations and cultures.
But something else fascinates me.
The Bible is filled with dreams.
Visions.
Prophecy.
Angels.
Divine messages.
Miracles.
Warnings.
Premonitions.
People hearing voices.
People receiving information from beyond ordinary perception.
Apparently supernatural communication isn’t the problem.
The argument is generally about where it comes from.
If an approved prophet receives a vision, Holy.
If Doris from Birmingham receives one while doing the ironing, everybody panics.
And perhaps that contradiction deserves more examination.
I am not suggesting religious believers abandon their convictions.
Far from it.
I’m suggesting we ask a more interesting question:
Why has humanity always been fascinated by communication beyond ordinary consciousness?
Because it has.
Long before modern spiritualism.
Long before Christianity.
Long before organised religion as we recognise it.
Human beings dreamed.
Saw visions.
Consulted oracles.
Watched the stars.
Honoured ancestors.
Entered trance states.
Sought signs.
Asked the dead questions.
Asked the gods questions.
Asked nature questions.
And mostly asked the same thing:
What the hell is going on?
We are still asking.
We simply have better phones now.
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ALL PSYCHICS ARE FAKE!
No.
Some are.
Let’s not dance around it.
Fraud exists.
Cold reading exists.
Manipulation exists.
People exploit grief.
People make outrageous claims.
People invent Spirit messages.
People tell vulnerable clients they are cursed and demand money to remove the curse.
That isn’t Spirituality.
That’s, exploitation wearing jewellery.
Such people deserve exposure.
But saying:
“Some Psychics are fraudulent, therefore all Psychic experiences are fraudulent”
Is logically ridiculous.
Some doctors have committed fraud.
Are all doctors fake?
Some charities have stolen money.
Is charity fake?
Some scientists have falsified research.
Is science fake?
Some journalists lie.
Does journalism therefore not exist?
Fraud proves the existence of fraud.
Nothing more.
The interesting task is distinguishing genuine experience, coincidence, subconscious perception, error, self-deception and deliberate deception.
That is much harder.
Which is probably why shouting .... FAKE!!!! is so popular.
It saves thinking.
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BUT WHAT IF THE PSYCHIC BELIEVES SOMETHING THAT ISN’T TRUE?
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Because fraud isn’t the only possibility.
A person can be completely sincere and completely wrong.
Humans manage this every day.
We misremember.
Misinterpret.
See patterns.
Fill gaps.
Confirm our expectations.
Ignore contradictory evidence.
And psychics are not magically exempt from human psychology.
This is why responsible Psychic work requires something surprisingly unglamorous:
Self-Doubt.
Not crippling doubt.
Disciplined doubt.
Ask:
Did I actually receive that impression?
Or did I assume it?
Was that information specific?
Or could it apply to almost anybody?
Am I remembering my successes more clearly than my failures?
Did the client accidentally give me clues?
Am I telling myself a better story after the event?
Those questions don’t weaken psychic practice.
They strengthen it.
If something genuine exists here, it should survive examination.
Truth doesn’t need protecting from questions.
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WHO ARE YOU?
Eventually we return to the first question.
Who are you?
Who am I?
Perhaps that is why Psychic work fascinates people so deeply.
Because beneath all the questions about ghosts, predictions and lottery numbers lies something much larger.
What are we?
Are we biological machines that become conscious for several decades and then disappear?
Perhaps.
Are we consciousness temporarily inhabiting biological bodies?
Perhaps.
Does some aspect of consciousness survive death?
Perhaps.
Are we interconnected in ways science hasn’t yet fully understood?
Perhaps.
Does time work quite differently from our everyday perception of it?
Perhaps.
The greatest word in the psychic vocabulary shouldn’t be definitely.
It should be:
Perhaps.
Perhaps leaves the window open.
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WHAT ARE YOU?
HUMAN.
That’s my answer.
Human first.
Psychic somewhere considerably further down the list.
I eat.
Sleep.
Laugh.
Get annoyed.
Forget things.
Lose things.
Make mistakes.
Have good days.
Have bad days.
Occasionally wonder what the hell humanity is doing.
Yes, occasionally experience something that makes me wonder whether reality is vastly stranger than we’ve been taught.
Being psychic doesn’t make somebody Spiritually superior.
It doesn’t automatically make them wise.
It certainly doesn’t make them infallible.
There are wonderfully compassionate psychics.
There are dreadful psychics.
There are intelligent ones.
There are idiots.
Rather like plumbers.
Or accountants.
Or politicians.
Although perhaps we shouldn’t get started on politicians.
We’ve only got 5,000 words.
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WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE YOU?
Messy.
Wonderful.
Funny.
Occasionally exhausting.
Sometimes astonishing.
Sometimes confusing.
Sometimes deeply moving.
There are moments when someone sits opposite you carrying grief so enormous that you can almost feel the weight of it.
Then something happens.
A name.
A memory.
A peculiar little detail.
Something, seemingly insignificant.
Their face changes.
For one moment the grief loosens its grip.
Maybe they believe someone they loved continues.
Maybe they simply remember that love itself continues.
Either way, something softens.
Those moments matter.
But so do the failures.
The blank readings.
The misunderstood impressions.
The occasions when nothing connects.
They remind you that you are not an oracle carved from sacred marble.
You’re a human being attempting to understand another human being while peering through whatever strange crack in reality may—or may not—exist.
Humility is useful equipment.
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PERHAPS WE ARE ALL A LITTLE PSYCHIC
Now here’s where I really intend to cause trouble.
What if “Psychic” isn’t a separate species?
What if whatever we call intuition, instinct, gut feeling, synchronicity,
telepathy or psychic perception exists on a spectrum?
Have you ever thought about someone seconds before they telephoned?
Dreamed about somebody you hadn’t seen for years and encountered them the following day?
Walked into a room and immediately sensed tension despite nobody speaking?
Known someone was lying without knowing how?
Changed your journey for no obvious reason and later discovered why?
Felt watched?
Known a loved one was in trouble?
Perhaps ordinary psychological explanations account for many such experiences.
Probably they do.
But all of them?
That is where the fun begins.
Human beings possess extraordinary subconscious pattern-recognition abilities.
Our brains detect facial expressions, tones, movements and environmental signals without conscious awareness.
That alone explains many experiences called intuition.
But acknowledging that doesn’t close the question.
It opens another one.
What are the limits of human perception?
We still don’t know.
Anybody claiming science has answered every question about consciousness has misunderstood science.
Science is not a giant book labelled THINGS WE ALREADY KNOW.
Science is a method for investigating things we “DON’T”.
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MAYBE THAT IS THE REAL JOB
Perhaps the Psychic’s most important job isn’t predicting marriages.
Or jobs.
Or house moves.
Or whether Kevin is coming back.
Kevin, if you’re reading this, for God’s sake make your mind up.
Perhaps the real purpose is reminding people to look beyond the obvious.
Not believe everything.
Not reject everything.
Question everything.
Including the Psychic.
Especially the Psychic.
Ask questions.
Keep your common sense.
Keep your wallet nearby.
Never hand your personal power to somebody because they claim supernatural authority.
Never allow anyone to frighten you into dependence.
Never believe you require repeated readings to survive your own life.
A good Psychic should leave you feeling more capable of making your own decisions, not less.
Otherwise something has gone badly wrong.
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WHAT ABOUT DEATH?
There it is.
The question underneath almost every question.
Death.
We pretend not to think about it.
We certainly think about it.
Human civilisation is practically built around our awareness that one day we won’t be here.
Religion addresses it.
Philosophy addresses it.
Art addresses it.
Science investigates it.
Psychics and mediums wander into the middle of it wearing slightly too much jewellery.
Perhaps our fascination with psychic phenomena is really our fascination with survival.
We want to know:
Does love end?
Does consciousness end?
Are the people we’ve lost really gone?
Will we see them again?
Is there more?
I cannot prove the answer.
I distrust anybody who claims absolute certainty.
But I can say this:
Human beings have been reporting extraordinary experiences surrounding death for thousands of years.
Maybe one day we will understand them.
Maybe neuroscience will explain far more than we currently imagine.
Maybe physics will completely alter our understanding of consciousness.
Maybe death is exactly what materialism says it is.
Maybe it isn’t.
Until then, wonder remains permitted.
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SO, ARE PSYCHICS REAL?
Wrong question.
Far too simple.
People who call themselves Psychics are unquestionably real.
Look.
Here I am.
Still haven’t disappeared.
The useful questions are:
Do humans possess forms of perception we don’t yet fully understand?
Can information ever be acquired beyond currently accepted sensory mechanisms?
Does consciousness survive bodily death?
Can future events ever be perceived before they happen?
What role do coincidence, psychology, memory and subconscious observation play?
Why have these experiences appeared across cultures throughout human history?
Those are much better questions.
They don’t require belief.
They require curiosity.
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ONE LAST QUESTION…
After all these years, after all the questions, scepticism, laughter, accusations, astonishing moments, complete misses, strange coincidences, grieving families, unexpected names and things that occasionally make even me think:
“How the bloody hell did I know that?”
I still don’t claim to understand exactly what being Psychic is.
Perhaps that’s the point.
We humans have an unfortunate habit of assuming that if we can give something a name, we understand it.
We don’t.
We named Gravity long before we fully understood it.
We named Consciousness and still can’t adequately explain why subjective experience exists.
We named Love.
Good Luck explaining that one.
So we created another word:
Psychic.
And perhaps that word is simply a label attached to a collection of human experiences we haven’t finished investigating.
Some will prove mundane.
Some Psychological.
Some Coincidental.
Some Fraudulent.
Some Mistaken.
Perhaps—just perhaps—
some will force us to rethink what we believe Consciousness, Time, Life & Death actually are….
That possibility excites me.
It should also humble us.
Because perhaps the Universe doesn’t owe humanity an explanation that fits neatly into the boxes we’ve already built.
Perhaps reality is bigger than our beliefs.
Bigger than Religion.
Bigger than Scepticism.
Bigger than Science’s present Knowledge.
Bigger than Psychic Tradition.
Certainly bigger than me.
So…
Who are you?
Christian.
What are you?
Human.
What’s it like to be you?
Complicated.
What’s it like to be Psychic?
Even more complicated.
Do you see dead people?
Sometimes strange things happen.
Can you give me the lottery numbers?
Apparently not.
Why haven’t you won the lottery?
I STILL WISH I BLOODY KNEW.
Do you get things wrong?
Absolutely.
Are some Psychics fake?
Absolutely.
Are all Psychics fake?
That’s a much bigger claim.
Are you doing the Devil’s work?
If I am, his payroll department has seriously misplaced my cheques.
And finally:
What do you believe?
I believe we should remain curious.
I believe we should question extraordinary claims.
I believe we should question comfortable explanations too.
I believe nobody should surrender their judgement to a psychic,
priest, politician, scientist, guru—or anyone else claiming unquestionable authority.
I believe kindness matters more than being right.
I believe mystery is not something humanity should be embarrassed about.
I believe there are still things about consciousness, existence and
this ridiculous magnificent Universe that we simply do not understand.
Perhaps one day we will.
Until then…
I’ll keep listening.
I’ll keep questioning.
I’ll keep getting some things right.
I’ll undoubtedly keep getting some things wrong.
I’ll keep wondering what lies behind the curtain.
And I’ll keep answering that bloody lottery question.
Because perhaps being psychic isn’t really about knowing everything.
Perhaps it’s about having the courage to admit just how much we don’t know.
And remaining curious enough to keep looking.
After all…
The greatest mystery may not be whether there is life after death.
It may be whether we ever truly learned how to live before it.
Now there’s something worth predicting.
If I ever do get those six lottery numbers…
Don’t worry.
I’ll let you know.
After I’ve collected the cheque…..
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