Night With A Psychic

Do you believe in psychics? The rational part of my mind has always been a tad skeptical when it comes to people who claim they can either see the future or commune with the dead. As I have gone through life, however, I have seen, heard about and had experiences that have certainly forced me to keep an open mind on the subject.

The problem is, however, that there are a lot of charlatans out there, all of whom are getting paid to pretend that their gift is real. Several weeks ago, Mom and Lynn had come to the beach for a visit and we saw that our local coffee house was going to have a psychic on Friday evening. Mom really wanted to go, so the three of us trooped over, bought our coffees and waited to see what happened. What transpired was fascinating to watch.

Let me just start by saying that the woman we saw was a fake. She was so obvious that even Mom, who has a much more open mind on the subject than I, was convinced that what we had seen was a show and nothing more. How did we know?

The woman started the evening by throwing out a very general question, “Is anyone in the room about to celebrate a big anniversary? I’m sensing a 50th or 60th.” No response. Over the course of the evening, said big anniversary kept changing, until finally she hit ten years. She never did get a hit.

The general questions kept coming, so general that the odds were overwhelming that someone in the audience would respond. “Is there someone going through a change at work?” “Did someone lose a member of their family at too young an age?” You get the idea.

What was fascinating to watch was not the psychic, but the audience. A woman about my age responded to the question about losing a member of her family too young. The psychic kept giving information, each and every bit of it was wrong. The woman to whom she was speaking, however, didn’t see it. “It was an uncle.” “No, it was an aunt.”

Another woman answered the job question, and again the psychic didn’t really know anything. She would say something, be proven wrong, but the woman to whom she was speaking would just let her carry on.

Then it struck me. What the people who are talking to this woman want is reassurance and comfort. The woman with the job change just wanted to know that she was on the right path. The psychic assured her that she was. Many, many people wanted to know that people they have lost were safe and happy. They were all assured that the afterlife is a good place, that all of our loved ones are happy and they are all looking out for us.

So, finally, who am I to judge? If this woman, who is no more psychic than I am, can provide such reassurance and comfort, perhaps it is a good thing. Life can be tough and, if the words of a stranger bring solace, let them.