Calliope (the main character in my series) grew up among a special group of entertainers in unusual venues such as local State Fairs or Renaissance Faires. In North Carolina the State Fair can have over a million people attend during the week it’s open in October and the Carolina Ren Faire can have even more. Clair, Callie’s mother, is like the Carnival Medium in a semi-darkened tent surrounded by symbols of the mystical. She might have a small table with two or three small chairs or stools surrounding it. If she were a Tarot reader, her deck of cards would be arrayed over the surface of a tie-dyed cloth in a pattern well known to Tarot experts everywhere. There might even be the smoke of patchouli incense wafting through the close quarters as you sit in rapt attention awaiting news of your fate. The question in your mind is whether this Carnival Medium, Palmist or Tarot card reader truly has the Second Sight or if they are just really good at observing human behavior.
Mentalism has been around since before the turn of the twentieth century. Arthur Conan Doyle claimed his wife had “The Gift” while his acquaintance, the famed magician Harry Houdini, begged to differ. Parlor mediums sprang up like leaks in an old garden hose throughout the U.K. and especially the West Coast of the U.S. Many were exposed as the confidence tricksters they were through the diligence of skeptics who felt they were taking money from the bereaved under false pretenses. However, a very few had been quietly using their true gifts on those who sought them out for help from the spirit realm. The problem of discerning the mentalist from the psychic still exists today. How is an unsuspecting customer to suss out the con artist from the real deal?
There are some tricks employed by the mentalist that the psychic doesn’t use. For instance, a mentalist will begin with broad statements or questions that are very similar to those from a game of “Twenty Questions”. Some examples are “You have gone through a change recently.” Or “Do you know someone whose name starts with a letter J?” A vast majority of people go through some change or other and the name John is the most common name for men in the U.S. From your acknowledgment, the mentalist begins to drill down deeper until you divulge information they can use to manipulate you. Even if you are careful not to utter a syllable as the mentalist questions you, small facial expressions or body language can provide them the needed clues to move forward with more specific questioning. If they get it wrong, it’s easy to say the spirits just aren’t cooperating today or that they didn’t quite understand the signs. The very worst of these predators will tell you that a curse has been laid upon you that, for a little extra money, they can remove.
Those with Clairvoyance or Mediums get their information from different sources and sense them in different ways. Some claim to have spirit guides that offer their knowledge through symbols or sounds only the Medium can discern. Some say they see whole reels of the particulars of a client’s life as if they were sitting in a theater watching it on the movie screen. For some, it is as obvious as your face as you sit in front of them, for others, the details are as gauzy as tulle cloth and requires a meditative state to obtain. Psychic ability is as individual as the person wielding it which makes it that much harder to pin down and study easily. What can make an experience with a professed true psychic different than with a mentalist is that they will hit on more specific clues about their client. Since telepathic knowledge is not time-dependent, information may come from the past, present or future.
There are those, however that are neither telepathic nor are professional mentalists. These people are earnest in their belief that they have a psychic ability like some of the early contestants on “American Idol” believe they can sing. They come forward during a police investigation swearing they have information about the crime or they volunteer that they are psychic to friends and coworkers. Actually, they are more like the rest of us that have had a couple of interesting moments of alignment or déjà vu and embraced it as true ability. This rationalization of a nonexistent skill is another hurdle for both the unwary client and the trusting investigator due to the absolute belief the supposed telepath has in their own ability.
Needless to say, approaching a stranger asking for psychic help should be handled with skepticism until they have proven that they know specific things about you that no stranger should know. At that point, you might just be dealing with a true psychic.