The Trivial Psychic

A few years back, Saturday Night Live did a skit called “The Trivial Psychic” wherein Christopher Walken revived the same character he played in the movie The Dead Zone. But in addition to being a reluctant psychic, he got visions of things that were small and unimportant: he couldn’t tell people when disaster was about to strike, but he was able to tell them things like “your housekeeper is annoyed right now because she just washed the floor and your daughter is leaving footprints on it.” He was the Trivial Psychic.

There are times when gaining clairvoyant skills enhanced through the practice of magic feels like just that—like you are turning into the Trivial Psychic. Every vision is not necessarily an earth-shattering event. Many visions, though spot on, may simply be about inconsequential events.

As a double Taurus, I don’t consider myself inherently more or less psychic than the next person. Skills involving greater psychic awareness don’t come naturally to me, and like the vast majority of magicians, I have to work hard at it to make headway.  I am also stubbornly skeptical by nature: I always test my skryings and other astral workings with the standard GD methods. Even then I take nothing for gospel. I don’t accept the literal, physical (as opposed to symbolic) truth of a vision just on faith alone. I never wanted to become what Israel Regardie used to call a “cosmic foo-foo.” If a vision, divination, or other astral working passes all my tests and exhausts all attempts by my rational mind to find a mundane explanation for it, then I will consider it a true psychic hit, not before. 

I have experienced a number of what I consider psychic “hits.” Some of these were very important hits. Others, which passed all my tests, were simply splendid examples of psychic trivia.

My most important psychic “hit” came in February 1985 when we were living in Georgia. I had an overwhelming feeling that we had to get to Sedona as quickly as possible to see Regardie. Although Chic had visited Regardie several times, I had never met him before. There was a urgent alarm going off in my head—a feeling that if I didn’t meet Regardie very, very soon. It would be too late. I was in my mid-20’s at the time and such pressing thoughts about the mortality of others was just not something I had ever experienced before. We drove from Columbus, Georgia to Regardie’s home in Sedona, Arizona. All the while I felt like we were racing against the clock—that Regardie would soon leave us. The feeling would not go away, no matter how many times I told myself that there was no logical reason for my fear. We stayed with Regardie for a week and then left for Scottsdale. We did not intend to go back to Sedona, but as a result of a purely unplanned, unexpected, and unexplained event (one of those “graceful synchronicities” so typical of magic), we ended up back in Sedona visiting Regardie for another week. After we finally left Arizona, Regardie died ten days later. Everything about the incident tells me that this was a psychic “hit”—a very important one at that. I will always be eternally grateful for having had the opportunity to meet Regardie. It probably changed the course of my life.

I have also had experiences with “hits” that definitely fall under the category of psychic trivia: We were driving to the grocery store one day and it occurred to me that I had forgotten my grocery list. An utterly ridiculous curse word formed in my mind—”Oh, Chicken farts!” I thought to myself. Chic was driving and he turned to me with a curious look on his face. “Chicken farts?” he asked. It is an absolute fact that I had not uttered a word, and yet Chic had heard my mental exclamation. Try as I may, I can find no rational explanation for it. It was a true psychic hit—albeit  a trivial and patently absurd one. 

This is just one example of the kind of frivolous psychic “hits” that magicians have on a regular basis. The knowledge they confer may seem downright stupid, but they also serve an important function. They serve to remind us that psychic gifts come in many forms—sometimes they are urgent and transformative. Other times they serve to remind us that such magical abilities are very possible, even if they remain a rare occurrence. It is as if the Divine simply wants to show us skeptics, through visions of events that have no importance, that magic is indeed a real, potent, enigmatic force. These events are magical “carrots” used to give us a glimpse—a sliver or whisper—of what is possible if we persevere in our studies. I also believe that we receive these “minor” visions more often than the important  visions so that we remain humble and don’t automatically assume that we have become the world’s “Greatest Prophet.” I think they are built-in protections against ego-inflation as well as indications that the Divine has a sense of humor. If some of our best psychic “hits” make us laugh, then there is less of a chance that we will take ourselves so seriously that we lose sight of our spirituality in the quest for psychic “powers.”

Sometimes you get life-changing visions. 

Sometimes you just get chicken farts.
And that’s a good thing.