One of the most intriguing human speculations is the sixth sense, the extra sensory perception, the pyshic ability that some would have us believe is a latent talent lurking in the dark recesses of our brain. It's been the fundamental idea behind plenty of fiction, television, and film. Can we really reach out with our minds and become aware of things our mundane senses don't perceive?

In europe there's a guy called Bronnikov that tells us we can. He was the subject of an investigation by Derren Brown, a stage hypnotist/magician, who was curious about the claims made by Bronnikov that he can teach people to see without eyes, or even that he can set people on the road to development as a more gifted species. That's a big claim. Time then to put aside the hobbies and sit down to watch the program. This might be interesting.

It seems that Bronnikov claims he was aware of his impending birth before it happened. That he was visited in a dream at the age of three by a tibetan monk who taught him these techniques. That he can levitate. He claims that we need to engage our 'uro-genital energy' and our 'psycho-bio-computer' to harness the forces that enable our leap in mental state. He also refused to tell Derren Brown what was inside the sealed cardboard box because such a test was unscientific.

You can draw your own conclusions but as the program makers noted, everyone still kept bumping into things no matter how hard they concentrated our how much money they spent on lessons. Just another charlatan selling snake oil and miracle cures. There's nothing new about this sort of activity, and indeed, it might be argued that religions begin from people like this and always have done. My own tip is to buy a white stick or a guide dog.

Mind Or Spirit?

Dreams can be so seductive. You can buy books on how to interpret them. Despite my misgivings, there are people who genuinely claim to have had strange experiences and I have to say, I'm amongst them. Was it an internal message or something more ethereal? Was it something deliberately contrived for our consideration, or that simply we can recall something of our brain doing its own file maintenance iduring our sleep? I must be honest, there have been times when I've been convinced that a dream is all buit real.

As a spiritualist I cannot dismiss the concept entirely, though in fairness I remain sceptical and require some sort of rational basis for believing something that remains hidden to us. Traditionally psychic ability is thought to be a power of the mind. By mental discipline we're supposed to able to access that larger part of our brain that remains dormant, even though there's no reason for believing such talents are part of natures design for the contents of our skulls. Let's face it, most people can't read past the sports pages of a newspaper, never mind reach out with their feelings and take a first step into a new world.

My own feeling is that if psychic ability exists, then it's a power of the spirit, not the mind. The mind is locked within us, an amalgam of instinct and deliberation. All those 'Concentrate And Guess The Card' games are essentially pointless as scientific experiments because any subliminal reading is drowned out by the concious mind. On the Richard & Judy afternoon chat show (remember them?) there was once a piece where it was claimed that depriving people of sensory input makes them more aware of things they shouldn't be aware of. Now provided they weren't pulling our legs, that was a fascinating insight into what might be there.

Of course I've had experiences that make me believe one thing or another. That's why I became a spiritualist for crying out loud. But for me, belief is what you hold to be true, and religion what you're told to believe. It seems ironic that in order to sell cures for blindness, these merchants rely on our blind faith.

To Fly Or Not To Fly

It just gets better doesn't it. Volcanic ash from Iceland is making international travel something of a lottery, and now the discontent of British Airways staff is dangerously close to mounting industrial action to make their grievances felt. Should you fly abroad or not right now? You could think about it, weigh up the probabilities of success or failure, and decide what course of action you think is to your advantage. Or perhaps you could see the future, reach out with your feelings and see what lies in store.... Or maybe just book the holiday anyway because you've only only been able to arrange time off work for that week and the everday grind is getting boring.