Can a skeptic become a psychic… and win a million dollars?
Do we all have hidden psychic powers? Is it possible to learn to be psychic? I have long been fascinated by these questions, and I’m hoping to find some answers as part of a unique and ambitious project over the coming year.
After nearly twenty years of researching ‘paranormal’ experiences from a strictly scientific perspective, I want to see if I can discover and develop my own hidden psychic abilities. If, of course, such things exist at all! I am naturally skeptical about the claims made by psychics, but I have always been intrigued by the possibility that maybe, just maybe, psychic ability could be real. And what better way to find out than to see if I can discover my own abilities?
I would love to know what it feels like to ‘hear’ voices in the way mediums often say that spirits talk to them. It would be amazing to be able to influence objects just by thinking about them using psychokinesis. And I would give anything to be able to ‘remote view’ and get visions of some distant event that I couldn’t know anything about, or see into the future and know what’s going to happen before anybody else! Are all these just fantasies, or is any of it actually possible?
To find out, I’m going to devote a year of my life to developing my psychic faculties. As my very own test subject, I’ll attend courses and workshops, and seek tuition and guidance from the leading figures in the psychic world. I’ll explore first hand the world of clairvoyants, mediums, and psychics and learn how to read everything from auras to palms to the tarot. On the flipside I’ll also learn how to cold read, and see just how much more information we give away without even knowing.
At the end of the year I plan to put myself forward for the million dollar challenge offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation for anyone who can demonstrate genuine psychic abilities. A professional magician, Randi is all too aware of how people can be fooled by those claiming to have paranormal powers. The question is, can anybody demonstrate they really have such abilities? As the scourge of psychics across the world, he’s made it his mission over the years to debunk and demystify the paranormal, offering a cool $1,000,000 for anyone who could demonstrate such abilities. The money has never been claimed. And this, argues Randi, is testament to the fact that they don’t exist.
But what if he’s wrong? What if they do exist? And what if psychic abilities are available to any one of us who makes the effort to search for them? Then, surely that would be worth far more than a million dollars. It would be priceless.