The sixth sense

Anyone can hone psychic intuition, class instructors say

Saturday, October 9, 2010  02:56 AM

By Amy Saunders

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Brenda Posani, an instructor, returns an item used to deduce facets of a life during a psychic-development class at Mystic Nirvana Hypnosis and Metaphysical Center on the Northwest Side.

During a class, students select personal items from a container to try to envision something about the owner.

Kim Graham was 750 miles away from her brother when she heard his cries in her mind: "Kimberly! Kimberly! The panicked voice, shouting the name that only he called her, so worried Graham that she phoned her mother, who lived near her brother in Georgia, to have her check on him.She has experienced similar forewarnings all her life: that the phone is about to ring, and then it does; that something is wrong, and then it is. The one night in 2007, her brother was found in a field - a leg cut off by a chain saw in an accident that led to his death. Graham, a Groveport resident, can't explain how she heard the calls for help. No one really can. She recently took her first "psychic-development" class to learn more about her potential ability."I want to know how to use it, not only to help myself but to help others," the 38-year-old said. "I want to know that I'm not crazy."

Most of the professional psychics offering readings and workshops this weekend at the Universal Light Expo, a metaphysical event at Veterans Memorial, don't see their ability as a phenomenon limited to a chosen few. At the expo and in various classes throughout central Ohio, psychics teach that anyone might learn how to obtain information outside the five senses - how to be psychic. Psychic ability is akin to singing talent, said Brenda Posani, owner of Mystic Nirvana Hypnosis and Metaphysical Center on the Northwest Side: Some people are born with it; others need lessons to improve it; still others don't care to learn it."We've all felt it at some point - that gut feeling, that 'I knew it!'" she said. "Whether you want to call it intuition or psychic ability, you have it - and it's just a matter of learning how to listen."Many classes in psychic development start with meditation to quiet the mind.

Some students perceive messages instantly; others require years of training, said Cindy Riggs, who offers individual psychic coaching at Ki Empowerment Holistic Center in Worthington."It depends on how many limiting beliefs they have about themselves," she said. "I believe that psychic ability is 85 percent self-confidence and the rest of it is skill."At Mystic Nirvana, Posani teaches open psychic-development classes on Thursdays so students can practice and strengthen their skills. Some of the dozen attendees last week were, like Graham, first-timers; others are enrolled in Posani's psychic classes (four levels, 10 weeks each).

Last week, students began with "psychometry," in which they anonymously swapped personal items - a watch, car keys - and took turns describing the feelings or images that came to mind when "reading" the energy of those items. One woman held Graham's ring and felt that the owner enjoyed relaxing by a fire pit. That's how Graham and her husband spend every Friday night, Graham told the class. A student felt that another ring's owner needed to take a trip to get away from a relationship problem. The owner said a counselor had recently told her the same. Such readings are possible, said Posani, also a licensed minister, because everyone and everything are created by the same unifying energy."If you believe in God or just something bigger than what we know, then you have to somehow believe we're a part of this Creator," she said. "The Creator knows everything - past, present, future - and you have a piece of that in you."She acknowledges, however, that no psychic knows everything. And, although all of her students came up with readings, some weren't specific - referring to relationship or financial worries, or encouraging the owner to be a better listener.

Such generalizations led Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptics Society, to write the mocking essay "Learn To Be a Psychic in 10 Easy Lessons" for Skeptic.com.Most people want to talk about universal subjects such as love, health and money, he advised, so psychics offer something-for-everyone statements on those topics while slipping in questions such as "Can you see why this might be the impression I'm getting?"  "There are hundreds of these kinds of comments: a red dress, a white car - what does this mean?" he said. "They're the ones doing the reading."Our brains are designed to find meaningful patterns in random noise. ... What we lack is a baloney detector."Yet, in a 2005 Gallup Poll, three in four Americans said they had at least one paranormal belief, with 41 percent believing in extrasensory perception. And psychics point to paranormal happenings in class exercises that can't be otherwise explained. In an exercise used in her six-week psychic workshops,

Susan Rawlings tells students to give impressions of a photo hidden in a sealed envelope. Students who have received a picture of her house - a former church built in 1880 - have described it as an old, spiritual brick structure; another referred to her husband's guitar collection inside."I know that it's real because it happens time and time again," said Rawlings, whose office is on the Northwest Side. "As far as explaining how it's done, you really just have to get out of that rational, logical thinking mind and just trust your feeling."There really is no scientific explanation for this."Entities that have researched the existence of psychic abilities include the U.S. government; Princeton University; and the Para psychological Association, an international group of 320 researchers and college professors based in Columbus.

In an experiment conducted several hundred times, a "sender" studies a picture and tries to telepathically convey the image to a "receiver," who is sitting in a pitch-black room. Given four choices, the receiver identifies the correct image an average of 34 percent of the time - more often than the 25 percent expected by probability."It suggests that people are using something other than the five senses," said executive secretary Annalisa Ventola, the association's only paid staff member. "But, with some people, you could do this experiment a million times, and it won't be good enough for them."

Back at the Mystic Nirvana class, students submitted written questions that were distributed to their classmates. Each student gave an answer before reading the question aloud to the class.One student said a hippo came to mind - but the question asked about the writer's relationship with her boyfriend."I don't know about hippo," the writer said after her question was read. "We've never even been to the zoo."When due for a reading, Sue Harrison described a vision of a male figure, a pool of water - and an Irish setter. She then read the question that classmates said gave them goose bumps: "What kind of dog should I get?"Later, said Harrison, who had taken one previous class, the image of the setter flashed through her mind three or four times when she held the paper in her hands."You don't really know why you're getting it," said Harrison, 50, of Dublin, "but it just appears."

asaunders@dispatch.com