So you probably didn’t know this, but I’m psychic.  Yes I am.  Cool, eh?  Well, sort of.  I mean, people have one of a couple of different reactions when I tell them I’m psychic.  Usually it’s either “Duh, there’s no such thing” or “Cool!  Can you tell me my future?”

Okay, the first thing you need to know about real psychics is that they do not tell the future.  Any psychic who isn’t trying to scam you and take all of your money will tell you that.  The future is unwritten and subject to change.

So what does a psychic do then?  Well, a real psychic, one who doesn’t go on TV wearing veils and bangles with too much eye make-up, will tell you which way your compass is pointing.  That’s pretty much it.  They have intuition about you from being around you and talking to you.  Sometimes they use cards or stones or symbols to tell them things.  But mostly it’s about those feelings that you get.

Ah, you say, that’s not psychic at all.  That’s just being really intuitive about people.

Yeah, I buy that.  I would be willing to say that “psychic power” is really just a flashy way of saying someone is extremely perceptive about others based on visual and verbal cues.  I wouldn’t consider that fraud or anything though.  There are a lot of people out there who are anything but perceptive and they need someone to point out the not-so-obvious to them.

So that’s psychics debunked, right?

Well, almost.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you’re trying to figure out if someone is really psychic or not?  “Tell me something that no one else knows about me.”  Right?

There I was, my first psychic reading ever.  It was at a psychic convention in Huntsville, Alabama.  A friend I had made down there was very into things like astrology and psychics.  She had plotted my entire star chart for me and proceeded to tell me that I was crazy because it was full of conflicting elements.  I was tickled pink, of course.  And there were a lot of things about that chart that make reasonable sense.  But that’s another story.

I sat down across the table from this middle aged, wrinkly woman in clothes that could be considered hippie.  I really didn’t expect much.  I knew I was perceptive about things, but seriously?  This was a complete stranger who didn’t know a thing about me.  I was ready for her to tell me a lot of generic mumbo-jumbo that could apply to anyone in the room.

And then she said, “You have a strong spirit protecting you.  She has a very motherly presence.  It’s your mother.”

Okay, my Mom had died about two years before that.  I was in my early 30s at the time and there was no way that random old me walking into a convention center crowded with people and sitting down could have given her a clue that my Mom had died.  I was impressed.

But then she said, “You have another guardian.  He’s a man dressed in white and he’s carrying a sword.  It’s Michael the Archangel.”

Now that gave me chills!  Why?  Because for years I had had dreams, daydream or otherwise, about a man in white with a sword who kept really bad things from happening to me.  And in my musings about this guy I had flippantly named him Michael.

Telling someone they have a guardian is one thing.  Describing him like that could apply to anyone.  Michael the Archangel is a pretty common figure of various religious systems.  So any of that could have been a totally random guess.  But even if the Michael of my imagination was just a character I conjured up from the same part of my brain that makes up stories … how did she know?  I had never really shared my Michael with anyone.  Coincidence?  Maybe, but that’s one hell of a coincidence!

So back to me being psychic.

I’ve had premonitions about things.  When I was seven I dreamed the day that my Granddad died pretty much exactly the way it happened six months later.  When I was in high school I had a bad feeling about a boy who was a senior when I was a freshmen, and he was killed in a fall the summer after graduating.  When I was in Alabama trying to develop my psychic abilities I had a premonition that one of my classmates would have a tragedy in his family, and a few days later his father committed suicide.

But my “favorite” prediction of all was in May of 2011.  I was on a trip to New York City with my grad school class to see a Broadway show.  We went to the World Trade Center to buy tickets.  As we were walking between the two towers I looked up and had the most horrible sensation of fear that I’ve ever felt.  And I turned to the person next to me and said, “I have the most horrible feeling like the building is coming down on top of me.”  Well, we all know what happened four months later!  I’m glad I went on record as saying that to someone because otherwise no one would have believed me.

The moral of the story is, if I tell you I think you’re going to die, watch out!

So do I really believe in psychic powers?  Eh, I don’t know.  It’s a very cool thing to think about.  I’ve had evidence that would lead me to believe.  I’ve had explanations that would lead me to doubt.  I guess it changes with my mood.  If we ever meet in person I’ll do a reading for you and see what we end up with.

What do you think?  Psychic powers or no psychic powers?