PSYCHICS

Psychics
By James K. Walker

Famous Psychics: Madame Blavatsky, Arthur Ford, Jeanne Dixon, Uri Geller.

Other Names: Mediums, Necromancers, Spiritualists.

Associated Practices: Divination (Astrology, Tarot, I Ching,
Palmistry, Mind Reading, telepathy, etc.), Necromancy (Seance,
Channeling, Ouija Board, etc.), and telekinesis moving objects
mentally or spiritually such as table tilting, levitation).

INTRODUCTION
On January 25, 1997, America's most famous psychic, Jeanne Dixon died.
During her lifetime, America experienced unparalleled growth in the
interest and acceptance of psychics and paranormal phenomena.
According to Larry Rosen, president of NetLive Communications, over
her celebrated 50 year career Dixon was advisor to world leaders
including US presidents and wrote eight books including Reincarnation
and Prayers to Live By and The Call to Glory. At the time of her
death, Dixon syndicated columns were featured in over 800 daily
newspapers worldwide (Business Wire, January 28, 1997).

Shortly before her death, Dixon announced plans to join the popular
and profitable 900 psychic telephone network industry with her own
Jeanne Dixon's Psychic Network. She was unable to see her plans
fulfilled as she died shortly after the network was announced and
before it could be launched. Two months after her death, however,
Watchman Fellowship received an email purportedly from Dixon herself
(jeanne.dixon@...) stating, "Hello, I'm Jeanne Dixon a psychic,
medium, healer, spiritualist, clairvoyant & astrologer.. . . I can
predict your future.. . . Please call me right now!" (email dated
March 21, 1997). The message provided both a 24 hour "900" number and
an "800" number to use with credit cards. The message was not, of
course, some weak attempt to demonstrate communication with the dead
through the Internet. It did, however, demonstrate Netlive
Communications' dogged determination to continue with the Jeanne Dixon
Psychic Network despite her unanticipated death. The network features
several $3.99 per minute "900" lines ending in "J-E-A-N-E" and the
first live, videoconferenced psychic, tarot card and astrological
guidance service over the Internet (Business Wire, January 28, 1997;
December 16, 1996).

Dixon's death will apparently not dampen the the success of her
psychic network or the psychic industry as a whole. Dionne Warwick's
Psychic Friends Network employs approximately 1,500 psychics logging
an estimated 3 million minutes a month at about $4 per minute
according to Baltimore-based Inphomation Communications, Inc. ("Who
could've foretold psychic spree?" Dallas Morning News, March 19, 1996,
pp. 1-C, 6-C). According to those estimates, Warwick's service alone
would gross $144 million annually. In addition to Warwick and Dixon,
Mark Plakias, managing director of Strategic Telemedia, a New York
research firm estimated nearly half of the 200,000 pay-per-call
entertainment services in America are psychic hotlines (ibid., p. 1-C).

Richard Dworman, editor of the Infomercial Marketing Report, estimates
Psychic Friends Network's gross annual income at a more conservative
$100 million. Still, this is remarkable for an organization that
started just seven years ago and is receiving between 7,500 to 10,000
paying calls each day. "The thing took off like a rocket, it was at
the right place at the right time," said Dworman ("Seeking your
fortune can cost one," The Philadelphia Daily News, March 19, 1997, p.
C-1). The second and third largest psychic networks, Psychic Readers
Network and Your Psychic Experience, annually take in about $50
million and $35-$40 million, respectively (ibid.).

Psychic hotlines are just one aspect of America's growing psychic
industry. Psychic fairs are commonplace in many US cities.
Dallas-based Creative Organization has sponsored monthly psychic fairs
held for the past fifteen years featuring crystal balls, astrology,
palmistry, clairvoyants, seers, tarot cards, and rune stones
("Mediumcool," The Dallas Morning News, March 29, 1996, Guide, p. 30).
Metaphysical and New Age book stores can be found easily in the Yellow
Pages of many American cities, and the Internet is facilitating a
cottage industry of "cyberpsychics." One psychic entrepreneur,
Jonathan Katz of Encino, Calif., boasts of up to 250,000 tarot, I
Ching or bioreadings a month through his web sites (The Dallas Morning
News, March 19, 1996, p. 6-C). Yahoo, a popular web index, lists 363
on-line psychic services in five categories (www.yahoo.com).

HISTORY
While modern technology such as 900 numbers and the Internet may be
partially responsible for fueling their recent popularity, psychics
and mediums are not new. A simple definition of psychic is "A person
who is either born with or develops many gifts or talents in the area
of ESP, clairvoyance, communication with the spirit world, abilities
to read the human aura and uses these special skills as a healer or
reader" (The New Age A to Z, p. 120). Defined this broadly, the
history of psychics may be traced back thousands of years ago to the
seers, shamans, and soothsayers of ancient pagan religions and occult
practices. Yet in North America the popularity of the psychic arts is
something relatively new. What are the roots of the modern psychic
revival in America?

The genealogy of the modern psychic movement can be found in certain
aspects of the mesmeric and Spiritualist movements. These practices
spread through Europe and America in the early and middle 19th century
after followers of the controversial Austrian doctor, Franz Antoine
Mesmer (1766-1815), reported "thought transference, of clairvoyance
and 'eyeless vision'" in addition to other psychic phenomena in
"mesmerized" subjects. ("Psychical Research," Man, Myth, and Magic,
Vol. 17, p. 2273).

The popularity of mesmerism and especially its alleged healing
properties, along with the celebrated "rappings" of the Fox sisters of
Hydesville, New York, led directly to the sweeping acceptance of the
Spiritualist movement of the latter half of the 19th century. "It
accustomed the public to the idea that certain especially gifted
persons might, when in a state of trance, exercise clairvoyant and
other paranormal faculties, and even to the idea that some mesmeric
subjects might become aware of, and perhaps communicate with, the
spirits of departed persons. The mesmeric trance developed, by an easy
and natural transition, into the mediumistic trance. . ." (ibid., see
also, "Fox Sisters," Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology,Vol.
1, pp. 345-49). Thus, by the turn of the 20th century, the general
public's perception of psychic manifestation was largely limited to
the infamous Spiritualist churches. These featured necromancy
(communication with the dead) along with an assortment of other
manifestations. Critics and paranormal debunkers like famous
illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini claimed they were little
more than fakery and parlor tricks ("Houdini, Harry," Encyclopedia of
Occultism and Parapsychology, Vol. 1, pp. 440-41).

There were, however, efforts to distance Spiritualism from a purely
religious arena by attempting to explore, research and categorize
psychic phenomena as a science. In 1882 the Society for Psychical
Research (SPR) was founded by Sir William Barrett (1844-1925),
Cambridge professor Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), and F. W. H. Meyers
(1843-1901). Prominent early members included Edmund Gurney
(1847-1888) and "the St. Paul of Spiritualism," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(1858-1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes stories ("Spiritualism," An
Encyclopaedia of Occultism, p. 384; "Doyle, Sir Arthur
Conan,"Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Vol. 1, p. 261).

Spiritualists attempted to collaborate with scholars to scientifically
measure and prove psychic phenomena. Areas of study included thought
transference and other types of telepathy, hypnotism or mesmeric
trance, haunted houses, the "causes" or "laws" of Spiritualism, and
the history of such manifestations. Despite their intentions, the
controls and tests administered by the SPR did more to expose fraud
than to prove psychic manifestations. Colin Wilson who is personally
sympathetic to psychic phenomenon notes, "The results were
disappointing. Gurney committed suicide in a Brighton hotel in 1888
when he discovered that certain trusted mediums were tricksters. And
although the S.P.R. has had many eminent adherents . . . it has failed
to make any general impact" (Wilson, Colin, The Occult, p. 493).

For example, SPR had intended to publish a favorable report on the
famous medium, psychic and spiritualist, Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891),
who founded the Theosophical Society. But Blavatsky's housekeeper,
Emma Cutting-Coulomb, "blabbed" some of the psychic's techniques of
fakery to the Christian College Magazine whose story was immediately
picked up by the London Times. The reports of fraud were then
confirmed by the SPR researcher in India when he was allowed to
inspect Blavatsky's cedar wood "shrine" in which letters from the
spirit world would magically appear. "For some faithful disciple,
wishing to demonstrate that fraud was impossible, had slapped the rear
wall of the shrine saying, 'You see, it's perfectly solid,' when, to
his dismay, a panel had shot open, revealing another panel in the wall
of [Blavatsky's] boudoir" (ibid., p. 336).

In addition to fraud, public acceptance of the SPR specifically and
psychic manifestations in general were hampered by sexual scandals.
Houdini reported that female mediums "often" offered him sexual favors
in exchange for collusion during his investigations. Speaking of the
SPR's co-founder, Colin comments, "Myers's dubious character in
matters of sex or other people's correspondence does not prove that he
would be capable of faking the results of a séance; but . . . his
motives in forming the S.P.R. may have been highly charged and
emotional rather than purely scientific" (ibid., p. 494).

Failed attempts to "prove" psychic phenomena in the 19th and early
20th century did little to dampen the psychic revival of the last few
decades. Waning interest in psychics was boosted in the mid 20th
century by Disciples of Christ minister, Arthur Ford (1897- 1971), who
functioned as a medium for the spirit "Flecher." Ford founded the
Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship (SFF) in 1955 and received national
prominence in 1967 when he allegedly contacted the dead son of Bishop
James Pike on network television through trance mediumship ("Ford,
Arthur A.," Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Vol. 1, p.
341). Despite occasional interest, no one, including the psychics
themselves, may have been able to predict the degree of popularity of
the current psychic revival.

BIBLICAL RESPONSE
Much of the mystique and lure of modern psychics is the "proof" of
their claims and information through various alleged supernatural
manifestations. People often trust psychics because of their
persuasive demonstrations. The history of psychics is littered with
cases of proven fraud. Faked psychic phenomena may involve stage magic
or "sleight-of-hand." It is possible that Pharaoh's magicians used
common magic tricks to "duplicate" the first three plagues God gave as
signs through Moses (Exodus 7-8).

Professional magician James Randi, whose stage name is "The Amazing
Randi," has publicly exposed a number of psychics, spiritualists,
channelers, and charlatans. One of Randi's first targets was Israeli
psychic Uri Geller, tested by Stanford Research Institute (now SRI
International) for his powers to bend spoons and levitate objects.
Randi successfully demonstrated "The tricks were very simple.. . .
There was nothing you couldn't get off the back of a cornflakes box so
to speak" (Time, June 13, 1988, p. 72). Dan Korem, a Christian
illusionist, has also used his talents in stage magic to debunk a
number of fake psychics (see: Powers: Testing the Psychic &
Supernatural). The likelihood of fraud and fakery is one reason the
Bible warns against relying on "signs and wonders" as evidence for
truth-claims or proof of supernatural powers. Also, Satan can work
through "all power and signs and lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
Jesus warned, "For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and
shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the
elect" (Mark 13:22).

Some psychics will claim that their powers are consistent with the
Bible and come from God, even offering convincing demonstrations as
proof of their supernatural abilities. Jesus, however, warned his
followers not to seek signs, explaining that His resurrection, the
"sign of Jonah," would be the only verifying miracle upon which
believers can rely (Matthew 12:39-40).

For proof that their "gift" is of God, some psychics may point to
colorful examples of accurate predictions. Much of the accuracy of
psychics may be attributed to their use of the law of averages, "cold
reading" techniques, and even the use of private investigators. Rather
than celebrated random examples of some accurate predictions, the
biblical requirement for a prophecy is 100% accuracy (Deuteronomy 18:
20-22). The Bible also condemns necromancy (communication with the
dead) which is the modus operandi of many psychics and spiritualists.
Deuteronomy 18: 10-12 states, "There shall not be found among you any
one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or
that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a
witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a
wizard, or a necromancer. . ."

Christians also recognize that even real examples of spiritual
manifestations would not prove the phenomena is harmless or from God.
The Bible warns of demons, "seducing spirits" and "doctrines of
devils" (I Timothy 4:1). Believers are warned, "Beloved, believe not
every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). Faith in
psychics can be not only spiritually but emotionally dangerous as
well. Followers can become totally dependent on their psychics for
making even simple decisions. Psychics, in turn, can easily use their
influence to control and take advantage of their clients (see: Powers,
pp. 25-29).

RESOURCES
1) Powers: Testing the Psychic & Supernatural. Dan Korem. A
professional stage illusionist and popular Christian speaker, Korem
exposes the fraudulent techniques used by many psychics. Included are
sections on alleged telekinesis, psychic crime solving, and the art of
"cold reading." Korem includes a biblical perspective of psychics and
a section discussing why the resurrection of Christ was not a magic
illusion. 232 pages. 

2) Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs. John Ankerberg and John Weldon.
This comprehensive work on New Age spirituality includes sections on
psychic phenomena such as spirit communication (channeling and
mediums), divination (astrology, palm reading, etc.), psychic
healing, etc. Extensive biblical response also included. 670 pages.