Get into the spirit

Four grown men stand around a small wooden table. The tips of our fingers rest on its top when, suddenly, it begins to rock back and forth. I glance around the others' fingers and can see no one exerting pressure. This is weird.

We're attending a class in learning how to be a psychic with one of Living TV's resident mediums, Tony Stockwell, who's about to launch a new show Psychic School. In the show, he takes ten members of the public and tries to enhance their psychic abilities - today is designed to give myself and three others a taster of what they can expect.
Moving experience

We'd started earlier with a round of meditation - designed to get us in the mood. Tony is one of the four around the table as the rocking gains momentum. I half expect him to be the one pushing it, but then he lets go, calls over the fourth member of our impromptu school and lets them take his place.

The rocking slows momentarily and I'm convinced it's little more than a confidence trick. Tony, who has moved to the other side of the room, breathes: 'Come on babies, don't let me down.' The rocking picks up, getting progressively stronger. 'Come on. Bring the table over to me,' I hear him say. And with a jolt, the table starts 'walking' towards him.

Suddenly, I find myself following suit and whispering: 'Come on. You can do this.' Seconds later the table sets off on a merry dance, spinning as the four of us try valiantly to follow. To an onlooker it would probably appear a comical sight, but within a few seconds we can't keep up. Our hands get tangled, lift from the table top and its movement stops immediately.

Normally, I'd have been straight out the door, but the four of us have a strange sense of elation, can't keep the grins from our faces and exchange high fives.

Tony claims it's the easiest trick for a true spirit medium to present to non-believers and that he's done it with other trained psychics and made the table levitate.

If it's so easy, I'm not sure why such a phenomenon has never been recorded and unfortunately, we all had our hands on the table, not allowing us to take photos.

Even pictures taken by a still photographer who's snapping for the Scottish Sun look vaguely fake. I just wish I'd had my video camera to record it. But I'm afraid you'll just have to believe me: that table ran across the room quicker than Freddy Krueger on acid.

We're running out of time, but Tony thinks spiritual healing is something else we can pick up quickly. Glenn Hoddle's belief in this kind of thing earned him the sack as England manager, and Eileen Drewery gained the type of notoriety from it not seen since Uri Geller bent his first spoon.

Healing touch

Tony pairs us in twos, one putting their hands on the other's shoulders. As the healer, the idea is to think of what you believe to be God and imagine yourself harnessing that power as light through your hands.

As the healer, I feel little more than a light headedness from trying to concentrate. But when we swap partners and places, something quite strange happens.

At first, I feel my healer's hands quite heavy on my shoulders (something to do with macho taboo I suspect). But then it's almost as though his hands levitate slightly.

I feel our breathing patterns become simultaneous and drift off into a state of absolute calm. Images of a man's face, like a line or charcoal drawing pop into my consciousness and I feel dismembered from my body and the surrounding environment. When I hear Tony's voice say: 'And you two can stop now as well.' I open my eyes and see the medium smiling.

'The spirits are quite excited by you two,' he says. 'There was the spirit of a man trying to contact you. I saw him almost climb into James's body in an attempt to do so.' Needless to say, this time I'm a little freaked.

Following the session I try to legislate for what I've seen and felt. I've always retained a healthy scepticism in the spirit world: I'd like to believe, but I need convincing. Was what happened in our two hour session contact with the spirits or just mind over matter, some form of collective consciousness?

I'm still not sure - all I know is, at our meeting with Tony Stockwell, some pretty mad shit went on.

Tony Stockwell's Psychic School begins Monday, June 16 on LivingTV.