Psychic

A psychic is an individual who claims to have paranormal powers or extra sensory perception. Psychics profess to be people who can sense things without being told and are said to be more in tune with the forces around them. A psychic might also be clairvoyant, seeing things or perceiving things others cannot. A psychic might also be able to see or predict events in the future.

• Not all psychics claim to be equal in terms of the things they are able to do. A psychic who considers themselves to clairvoyant may work as a medium, contacting dead loved ones for individuals. Psychics who claim to be able to see the past or future have been known to work with police officers at times, trying to help with crime solving. Many psychics just prefer to work for themselves, telling fortunes, reading tarot cards, and palm reading for customers.

• The word psychic comes from the Greek word “psyche” which means the mind, the human soul or the spirit. The history of psychics dates back to ancient times, when prophets used to predict the future. Hundreds of thousands of people have claimed to be psychic since those times. However, the first acclaimed psychic was Dr. Franz Antoine Mesmer in the late 1700s. He was often called on to heal people, but the his psychic claims did not seem to be strong. Other psychics who were well known in history were the Fox sisters, three women who were said to be visionaries in the mid 1800s. They claimed to be able to speak to the dead and their shows would include odd movement and strange sounds, suggesting ghosts. Years later, one of the psychic sister would announce that the shows had been faked and that she did not believe in any spiritual beings.

• By now, there had been some churches that had claimed to have the psychic ability to speak to the dead and who called themselves Spiritualist churches. They had a lot of critics though, including the famous magician Harry Houdini. This viewpoint, which relied heavily unscientific practice began to prevail in the late 1800s. The Society for Psychical Research began to discredit psychics by conducting series of tests on practices such as hypnotism and telepathy. The tests ended proving that most of the claimed psychics to be frauds. One psychic, Madame Blavatsky, was proven to be a fraud by the Society for Psychical Research when one of her believers discovered the psychics hidden compartments which hid items that were used to fool the crowds with trickery.

To this day, there are many individuals who do not believe in psychics. These non-believers are known to denounce the field as fraudulent. There are however, still a growing number of people who believe psychics are real and seek their services to answer questions about their past and future.