Are some people truly psychic, or is it all a con?
I ACCEPT that the human brain is a hugely unexplored area and that people have no real idea how powerful an organ it is. Sadly, it doesn’t come with a comprehensive user’s manual, which would probably indicate that some brains are more advanced, either through nurture or nature, but that it’s not necessarily those who boast the most intelligence who automatically rise to the psychic challenge.
Cyprus seems rather awash with psychics, some the genuine article believing in their abilities to help their fellow man, others giving false hope, hindering people, for example, from coming to terms with the death of a loved one, through the hope of maintaining a contact beyond the grave.
Some years ago, I watched a medium, who, after a strenuous amount of concentrated effort, allegedly conjured up a grandmother from the spirit world. Then, at the end of such a challenging journey, she delivered, via the medium, the following groundbreaking and deeply comforting news for her granddaughter: “Tell her I do like her new kitchen units.”
There was going to be none of that nonsense, when, in the company of four other ladies, I turned up at the door of Suzanne Mitchell Eagan to test out if any of our group had fully or even partially developed psychic powers. I say developed, because Suzanne firmly believes that we all have the power – it’s just a case of most of us not being plugged in, with the result that we miss out big time on using our full brain and its inherent sensory perception.
In the company of Chloe, Gina, Anne and Margaret, we sat with Suzanne at her dining room table. In front of each of us was an envelope and inside four large white cards and on each card a different symbol. Our task was to try and select the card with the particular symbol that Suzanne was mentally focusing on. Nobody got it right, but, unfazed by our psychic density, we eagerly anticipated the next series of mind challenges.
This took the form of a test for any obvious leanings towards Psychometry, when a person can read the vibrations of different objects, a form of clairvoyance induced by touch. This also derives largely from sensing, in that the gifted will actually be able to feel a thought that has been built up, a slightly advanced prospect for us amateurs.
A large box was produced, which had been compartmentalised, each compartment covered. What we then had to do was to hold our hands over the box and try to divine which compartment held a phial of water. Two ladies got it immediately, and, as the evening progressed, so did their abilities; out of the five of us, these two consistently got the answers right, despite having been stoutly sceptical from the outset.
Suzanne reckoned they were getting themselves attuned to the situation and were opening up their minds to reading the signs given off by other human beings.
I asked Chloe how she felt during the different experiments. “I took it all very seriously, as I have always had a sneaking regard for the human brain and its potential. Also, I read some time ago about Russian experiments in mental transference, so I was really curious to find out if I had any talents in that direction. Sadly, I don’t, or at least as Suzanne explained I haven’t thought about developing them yet.”
Margaret was one of the duo who consistently got things right and I wondered if this was just a fluke or if she knew what she was doing.
“Oh, I knew what I was doing, because it felt so right and I just went with that feeling. I tend to do that in my daily life, I listen to my inner voice and so far it hasn’t let me down. You could explain it by saying I just use my God given natural instincts.”
There is no single answer to the question of how psychics function. Some seem to feel, others hear voices, some see, and many do, some or all of these things.
The big selling point all these people have is our own deep-seated need to believe in a life after death. If you have ever been in the presence of a recognised medium, you will, regardless of how sceptical you were when you went in, leave the place with questions you find difficult to answer, unless, that is, you embrace the fact that there is a spirit world.
I spoke to Marjory, a woman in her late 70s, who told me how she became a believer in spiritualism. “Many years ago, I went to the Albert Hall with my sister to hear the medium Doris Collins. I walked in a total sceptic; one hour later I was a total convert. Doris out of the blue indicated that it was me she wanted to contact, she called me by my first name, then asked if anyone with this name had a brother called Ryan, she kept pointing in my direction even though I was a hundred rows away from her.
“Doris had picked up on my baby brother who had died as a six-year-old child after an asthma attack. She kept saying his name while holding on to her chest as if she was having difficulty breathing ‘did he drown,’ she asked ‘or was it diphtheria?’
“Then I stood up and told her he had died from asthma. Then, through Doris, my long dead baby brother told me to stop blaming myself for his death. You see, I have always blamed myself because I couldn’t help when he had the attack, I was only two years older than him and more scared than anything so I just ran home to get my mother but he was dead by the time we rushed back.
“I cannot explain how that woman knew all this, so instead of trying to analyse it, I now just simply believe, because I need to.”
Can you explain it?
Natasha Demkina, the 18-year-old known as ‘the girl with the X-ray eyes’ claims to be able to ‘see’ inside people’s bodies and diagnose illnesses just by looking at them. In her native Moldova, one of the poorest former republics of the Soviet Union, Natasha is known as ‘Chewda’ meaning miracle. Recently, on British television’s breakfast programme, she correctly identified potentially serious pancreas and liver problems in the programme’s resident doctor.
Nina Kulagina became one of the most famous psychics in the Soviet Union in the sixties because of her amazing feats of telekinesis. Under close scientific observation she would hold her hands above objects on a table and within moments they would move across the table top. In the early seventies Kulagina was recruited by the Soviet government to heal the sick Nikita Khrushchev.
Koda Box in the early 1900s become world renowned for his apparent ability to see, even when his eyes were completely covered. Coins would be placed over his eyes and these were fastened with tape, before his head was completely bandaged in cloth. Nonetheless he could read books and accurately describe objects held out to him Scientists were unable to prove whether this was down to an amazing gift or clever illusion.
