It's all in your head

"This person you haven’t seen for a long time – is it because of something they did?” Shirley Ghostman is quizzing a bewildered audience member. The person replies in the negative. “Is it because of something you did?” Still no. “Is it because something happened?” he asks, straight-faced. “Did something happen somewhere to make you stop connecting?”

As you may have guessed, Shirley Ghostman is a spoof character, who taps into the farcical side of sooth-saying. His BBC show, High Spirits With Shirley Ghostman, derives its fun by taking a cynic’s view of clairvoyants: that a good reading involves nothing more than an observant con-artist and a gullible participant. The popularity of the show (it’s available on DVD, folks) is one sign that the relationship between psychics and the non-believers has never been more tetchy. This is especially so in Ireland, where a long-standing tradition of divination has come under increasing under attack from a new breed of practical-thinking go-getters who rubbish it.
On the one hand, psychic programmes feature in high-profile slots on respected independent stations like East Coast FM and Dublin’s Country Mix; on the other, flick through the newspapers of late, and you’ll see that people sniffed when a Dubliner claimed that he could locate the body of murdered woman Fiona Sinnott with his psychic powers (he couldn’t).
Similarly, Valerie Cox, a researcher on the Today show with Pat Kenny, found nothing psychic whatsoever about the premium-rate Irish Psychic Live telephone service. But when Kenny openly dismissed the service as ‘fraudulent’ and ‘rubbish’, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission upheld its owner’s complaint. Naughty Pat Kenny.
It’s interesting: there is a regulatory regime for broadcasters, which was invoked by Irish Psychics Live. But there isn’t one for psychics.
To be sure, I called the Office Of Consumer Affairs. The press office there confirmed that there is no legislation in place to stop anyone from setting up shop as a psychic or tarot reader. “People should be aware that it’s more of a gaming thing,” a spokesman said. “It’s true that anyone can call themselves tarot readers, and charge for it if they’re set up as a business – but those who pay should realise it’s just fun.”
Whether it’s really ‘just fun’ is of course the question. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise. Look around your social group, and you’ll find at least one hardened cynic (generally the practical person with the neatest hair and the steady relationship) matched by one who swears blind that they’re psychic – generally because they’ve been told so by another psychic. The rest will likely mutter about a few of their experiences that certainly stretch any notions of mere coincidence.
Friends of friends, however – now they’re the ultimate proof of psychic existence. Only a couple of months ago, a friend of a friend went to a tarot reader who insisted that she get checked out for cervical cancer, and sure enough doctors found the very first traces of it, which they were able to treat and cure with relative ease. There you go: indisputable evidence that psychic readings are not baloney. Or is it just an urban myth, propagated by a PR person for one of the bigger money-making Psychic operations around town?
We thought we should try to find out...

The Gang of Four

Hot Press decided to conduct an experiment, taking the most scientific approach possible. In the space of four days, I visited four of Dublin’s psychic tarot readers to compare and contrast their readings. I didn’t tell them my profession – if they were that good, they’d figure it out.
There’s a shop called House Of Astrology which sells crystals, incense, tarot cards and other such paraphernalia at the front, and does tarot readings at the back. On the day I went, Julian de Burgh was the resident reader. Equally renowned for his horoscopes, he charged €40 for a half-hour reading in a basement room with a spooky candle, a small table and two chairs, his style veering between psychologist as psychic. At the other end of the spectrum was Monica on Talbot Street, on the Dublin’s northside. The reading was much more informal (Today FM was playing in the background).
The third person was Trish in the Market Arcade, St George’s Street, for €30. Hers was the type of place that would fit in perfectly at a funfair, with fake cobwebs falling from the real cobwebs (or was it the other way around?)! The last to join our unsuspecting panel was Eddie Christian, better known to locals as ‘the guy under Miss Fantasia on South William Street’. His hugely confident way of acting and reading has earned him a mixed reputation. But people keep paying the going rate of €40 for a ten-minute session, because his followers claim he’s amazingly accurate.
With the four readers chosen, what sort of a history would they attribute to me? And what class of a future would they predict? In theory, they should give me more or less the same reading. And if not, then what would that tell us about the value or accuracy of what any of them said?

Lovelife

Perhaps it was because I am a lady in my late 20s, but they all got stuck into the love-life issues thick and fast. Julian de Burgh correctly identified my beau as very grounded and not easily fazed – though no one’s going to call their other half a nut-job and a drama queen! Trish said that we were a strong couple – but suggested that there are ‘two obstacles’ in our way, which is also sort of correct but woolly enough to mean anything. The prize for this round goes to Monica on Talbot Street, who saw that there was a dark-haired man who was mad about me (it’s true, he is), who is the same age or a bit younger (he’s 10 months younger), my second love (freaky!) and we’ve had one rough patch (we haven’t even had an argument outside of one crisis, the details of which I won’t go into here). All of her comments were freakishly accurate. Worryingly – for my boyfriend! – three mystics said that I’d end up marrying him. The exception was Eddie Christian. Remember him – the one that people swear by? Just great. He went against the grain completely, insisting that the man in question is not my true love – though, says Eddie, we’ve actually been together in former lives (!). Damn him.

Career

Again, it’s an obvious issue in the life of a 20-something, so I received plenty of advice on this subject. With both Julian de Burgh and Monica, the very same two cards of the career suit came up: the ace and the eight. It was the moment when a chill went up and down the spine. Both were broadly similar in their interpretation (that I’ll be successful, hooray! But then they would say that, wouldn’t they?). Julian de Burgh questioned why my (made-up) profession wasn’t a creative one, because that’s what he was getting from the cards. Good catch. Trish guessed that I’d been studying. Eddie Christian, meanwhile, confidently gave dates as to when I could expect different shifts in my career, and also tapped into my mind when he assured me: “You feel like you’re taking a risk in your profession, but don’t worry, you’re not.” But then you could say that to almost anyone, and they could find a reason to nod.

Family

In the realm of family, two of the readers (again Julian de Burgh and Monica) saw a negative presence in my life – but, in some shape or form, that has to be true of 95% of people’s relationships with their family. Through Julian’s counselling, we identified this as parental pressure. Most of Julian’s reading was based around the idea of needing to break free from the guilt, and while that’s relevant, it’s also easy enough to speculate by observing my Indian background and hearing my purely Western accent. No one else picked up on the issue of my parents, though. Another two, Trish and Monica, foresaw a trip coming up with my family – and our first one for eight years is indeed in the planning stage. Doo doo doo doo etc.
Outside of these areas, there was plenty of random speculation to be dealt with, from Monica’s vision that a relationship will be repaired, to Trish’s promise of a family member’s clothing factory receiving an important contract. Which would truly be miraculous as no one in my family owns a factory let alone a clothing one. File under ‘hooooookay...’

Grain Of Salt

So there we have it. Four psychic tarot readers, all with varying degrees of cross-over.
As a professed disbeliever who has a nagging sense that there might possibly be something to all of this, the whole experiment was less conclusive than I’d hoped. Eddie Christian, though telling me what I didn’t want to hear about my love-life and contradicting everyone else while he was at it, delivered the most convincing performance. Julian de Burgh, while getting closer to the very core of who I am, made statements which could have ultimately been guess-work.
Even Trish at the Market Arcade, who I expected to be the joker of the pack, came up with a couple of accurate predictions. But above all, Monica at Talbot Street was spot-on about so many things that she’d almost have you convinced.
Do I believe in psychic ability any more than when I set out? Let’s just say that I’m not quite as determinedly sceptical. But the moral of this story is that – like people in other professions – clairvoyants vary widely in their abilities. Even the better ones will never get it 100% right, which is why their readings have to be taken with a dose of salt – ranging from a pinch to a spoonful. Especially if they don’t say anything about winning the lottery.