On my first visit to a psychic on a cool January day, my strategy was to offer little information. In the spirit of National Psychic Week, the first week of August, I’ll admit I straddle the fence when it comes to ghostly conversations.

A mysterious board lay between us as the medium said a prayer softly, her hands gliding over the curious symbols. The room was dead quiet.

“Your father’s here. He thanks you for hosting the family Christmas. You had your family over?” “Yes, my family came over,” I replied, intentionally leaving out a recent loss. “One was missing,” she said. Darn, I had to give up my ace early.

“My brother passed away unexpectedly,” I said, sadness passing over me.

“Who’s Tom?” she asked. “Your brother’s here and wants to thank Tom. He knows it wasn’t easy for Tom.” I couldn’t recall Tom.

“OK, we’ll let it go,” she said.

“You just painted something. Outside. Your brother wants you to know he was with you, watching you work,” she said. Though it was winter, the day before Christmas I painted a project on my patio. Could she have guessed I painted something outside on a chilly Christmas Eve?

Psychic messages can be surprising. One local psychic predicted a broken left leg and death from E.coli poisoning, both of which eventually occurred. Intentionally, my psychic only knew my first name to hinder any research, as skeptics claim is part of the game.

“Your father’s holding a golf club. I think it’s a putter. He’s smiling and pushing it towards me,” she said.

I gulped, holding back my emotions. My brother’s putter hangs with his picture in my workshop. I loved golfing with him.

“I know what it means,” I choked. I felt glad my father and brother were here. True or not, this is perhaps the crux of the psychic experience. Emotional relief, a feel-good belief loved ones live on.

Our bodies are made completely of atoms that are immortal. They will transition to other matter when our physical selves are cremated or absorbed back into the earth. Atoms never die.

Scientists are astounded that quantum mechanics, the powerful, complex building blocks of our material world at the subatomic level, does not support our view of the physical world, our reality.

At the subatomic level, atoms behave in strange ways unheard of elsewhere in the universe. For instance, they can exist in two places at once.

In experiments, some subatomic reactions will remain in a certain state until someone observes them, sparking change. It’s human consciousness that provides the interactive catalyst. Science increasingly believes that with no evident physical connection, consciousness exists independent of our brains.

Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology said “It is almost an absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical.”

All things considered, we lack the intellectual capacity to doubt survival of consciousness.

“Was Tom with him when he passed?” she blurted suddenly. It jolted my memory. Tom was on the tennis court when my brother collapsed. Tom made the difficult call to my brother’s wife. “He knows it wasn’t easy for Tom.”

My visit covered a lot of ground, leaving me emotionally drained.

Many famous mediums claim that spirits seek only validation of their existence and that should be proof enough of an afterlife. I disagree.

If spirits are in fact communicating with the living, they suspiciously squander a profound opportunity. They owe mankind divine enlightenment, insight into life, death, faith. Not shallow reassurances.

Still, I’m losing my safe perch on the fence.

John Steward can be reached at tossinglines@gmail.com