What is a Psychic?

From the pages of OMNI Dr. Hans Holzer (1920 - 2009) American paranormal researcher and author defines the world of psychic energy.

Ever since psychoanalysis became fashionable and people heard of Carl Jung, the idea of a “collective unconscious" has been bandied about rather freely, although nobody ever proved that there was, in fact, such a thing. My late friend Bishop James Pike referred to it as “the world mind," a reservoir somewhere out there, which could be tapped by us at certain times and which was the very acceptable and comfortable “explanation" why so many people have the gift of clairvoyance, the gift of prophecy. Clearly, if someone foresees an event that has not yet taken place, or that occurs at some other location, a process is involved which does not fit into our conventional view of cause and effect, is that a psychic? It was Jung's great contribution to create the theory of "acausal synchronicity," or the law of meaningful coincidence, to explain some of these apparently paranormal happenings.

The evidence of reality is always there.

But the truth is that none of these brave theories cover all the cases, and the evidence of reality is always there, reminding us that the facts demand a different explanation than something so artificial as the collective unconscious. Even our personal unconscious is really nothing more than an acceptable, polite term for a portion of our soul or spirit that does not obey logic but stores information of a highly emotional kind, sometimes for long periods.

So we get back to the notion, expressed by many parapsychologists, that it is perfectly natural to be psychic and that this built-in ability brings with it the capacity to transcend ordinary barriers of time and space.

A psychic person can be anybody, man or woman.

A psychic person can be anybody, man or woman, but because it involves the emotions to be psychic, women tend to show more of this ability than men. This is not due to natural laws—men are as psychic as women—but due to social and environmental pressures and conventions going back a long time, and therefore occupational and philosophical rather than structural in nature.

Anyone who has had one or more experiences (usually spontaneous and unsought) with ESP, is psychic. We may refer to such people also as sensitives, mediums, clairvoyants, but the fact of their ability to have specific knowledge of events not transpiring in their presence is the common denominator.

The desire to know what is ahead is so great among people.

The gift of prophecy cannot be turned on at will, and professionals making their living giving “readings" to less fortunate people are not always able to deliver. I would hesitate to work with a psychic who is always right. It is the nature of the human beast to have moods and ups and downs and failures. A psychic may be great with one person and fail totally with another, or be great one week and unable to perform the next. Where the problems arise is when a professional forces things: in every field there are honest people and frauds, and prophecy is no exception. The desire to know what lies ahead is so great among people, it lends itself to unscrupulous operators. A few years ago I published the shenanigans at American Spiritualist camps with fraudulent materializations of the dead, but genuine materializations do exist elsewhere.

By and large, the authentic and somewhat scientific psychic field is clean: the real trouble, perhaps, is the comparatively large number of incompetent psychics who manage to do business despite their meager ESP talents, and the small but aggressive number of pseudoscientific exploiters who have discovered a gold mine in various "mind expansion" training courses or metaphysical cults of questionable validity.

There are a two notable psychics who were professionals and often in the limelight There stories are worth studying further for their insight into the history of psychic energy.

Sybil Leek

Sybil Leek (1917 - 1982) was a documentary producer for Southern Television in England and a writer, long before she acquired the public image of “the witch from England." Her Wiccan religion, White Witchcraft, had little bearing on her psychic talents. She was able to make trance contact with an unhappy spirit personality hung up in its former home. When a disturbance was investigated at the home of New York actress June Havoc, Sybil Leek performed her task even under the hot, glaring lights of film cameras, as she was recorded for television at the time. Through her mediumship, “Hungry" Lucy Rayn manifested, explaining that she had died of a plague in 1792. She was waiting for her soldier, who served under a commander named Napier. It turned out that Col. George Napier had indeed been in charge at that time, at that very location—totally unknown to all present. Mrs. Leek had no idea prior to the meeting where she was going that night.

Ethel Johnson Meyers

Ethel Johnson Meyers (1881 - 1960) was a vocal coach who sometimes gave her pupils more than musical lessons: her mediumship developed after her first husband, a musician, had passed on. Despondent over his death, she toyed with the idea of doing away with herself, when he appeared to her in a vision, or as an apparition, if you will, warning her against such action. He since became her “control," who determined whom may or may not use Ethel's speech apparatus, very much like a telephone operator on this side of life. Because of her involvement in solving ghost cases, Mrs. Meyers had become a much sought after medium, who dispensed psychic information to those lucky enough to get an appointment with her at the Sherman Studios on West 73rd Street, New York. On a particular trip to a mountain temple of very ancient origin, in New Hampshire, and despite a driving rain, Ethel described scenes from antiquity as if they were just happening.