Are there people who have genuine psychic abilities? I'm fascinated by this subject and would love to think so, although I'm really still a bit of a sceptic at heart. Scientific proof of extra-sensory perception is rather thin on the ground, it must be said; however, there are indeed a number of cases which continue to puzzle and perplex, so there might possibly be something in it, after all.
And if there actually were people who were gifted with psychic talents, would they have an edge over the rest of us, in the arena of the workplace? Yes, I think they definitely would have an advantage, and I will go on to explain how. On the other hand, there are plenty of excellent skills and techniques we non-psychics could use, in order to stack the odds in our favour, and I shall describe some of these, as well.
Let's look at five specific psychic abilities, and at how each might be deployed in the world of work.
1) Clairvoyance: this word comes from the French, meaning "clear visibility", and it involves being able to view information unavailable to the physical eyes. It is said that someone with this ability can gain mental impressions of hidden objects and also images held in the minds of other people. In the workplace, a clairvoyant might be able to read the contents of sealed envelopes or the secrets of computer hard drives, and a clairvoyant detective would have an immense natural advantage, being able to glean huge amounts of vital evidence from the faintest of clues.
However, we non-psychics have a rather underrated ability called intuition, which can be nurtured and developed until it is able to achieve quite startling results. We receive far too much information, every second of the day, to process consciously; the majority of our sense impressions are absorbed by our unconscious minds, completely unbeknown to us. However, we can learn to relax and trust in the fact that we "know" something without yet being aware of it. In the workplace, this might manifest as a "gut feeling" about a colleague or a business deal, which turns out to be uncannily accurate, even though consciously we have had limited information to go on.
2) Seeing auras: the word "aura" comes from the Greek word for "breeze" or "air", and it describes a ghostly nimbus of light surrounding a living person. Many psychics claim to be able to sense this, and tell us that the specific colour of each aura reflects that person's current emotional state. How useful that would be! A psychic worker would know from the boss's muddy, red-coloured aura that he or she was bursting with suppressed anger, and had better be avoided. A dark blue aura might signal nervousness, an orange one would reveal vigour or excitement - even the most poker-faced of customers could thus be read like a book.
But this is the sort of thing that we non-psychic types can do too. We can learn to read the body language of the people around us, decode the physical signals that everyone is constantly sending. Some are obvious - the finance director's macho strut, the office flirt's coy sideways glance. Others are more subtle and telling; experts say that no matter how each of us tries to control his or her image, there is a certain amount of "leakage" which can reveal that person's true state of mind, and this can be picked up on, once we know how.
3) Telepathy: this word comes from the Greek, and means "to be affected at a distance", although it has also been described as a sort of "mental radio", enabling the transmission of an idea or image directly from mind to mind, across any distance and through any barrier. This would have obvious advantages in today's far-flung business world, where I might need to instantly contact a virtual colleague over in Baltimore, Bahrain or Beijing.
And of course, this is what modern technology already allows us to do. In fact, with just about everyone having access to e-mail, instant messaging, cell phones and BlackBerries, it could be said that we have a little too much communication, nowadays; we cannot escape from it.
But there are also ways in which we can transmit ideas and plant them in the minds of others, without requiring psychic means, or gadgetry. Watch Henry Fonda in the classic movie 12 Angry Men and observe the many ways his onscreen character is able to persuade and sway the other jurors. Also study the system of personality types, according to Dr. William Moulton Marston's DISC model, for more insights into the ways different kinds of people respond to different kinds of language and influencing techniques. This is deeply fascinating stuff, and it can all be learned.
4) Precognition: the meaning of this word is similar to "foreknowledge" and is the psychic ability to sense future events. This would, of course, give such a person the ultimate inside information. Imagine being able to reliably predict the stock market, days or even years into the future - someone with precognitive talents could surely become an overnight billionaire, without even breaking a sweat.
And yet even without psychic powers, we can often do a fair job of predicting the future. Given that what will happen next is basically just the result of everything that is happening now, our intuition can help us greatly, if we let it. And there is an argument, explored by writer James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds, that the actions and decisions of great numbers of people, working in concert, can be an uncannily good predictor of future trends. So the power may be within all of us, to some extent, and perhaps all that is required is some effective way to tap into it.
5) Mediumship: this is the ability, professed by a certain class of psychic practitioner, to be able to converse with the spirits of departed people - a medium at work might thus have the opportunity to speak directly with the shades of any number of famous, influential and knowledgeable men and women from past ages. A soldier might converse with Julius Caesar, an archaeologist with Helen of Troy, a legislator with Confucius; each of them would thereby gain valuable information, advice and inspiration.
However, visualisation techniques can also serve to bring us into close contact with our heroes and role models from the past. Win Wenger, author of The Einstein Factor, recommends that we assemble in our minds a team of inspiring people from all epochs of history (building on Napoleon Hill's "Mastermind Alliance" concept), and consult them when we face life's challenges and dilemmas. An active and trained imagination is the key. And even without using this kind of procedure, we can greatly benefit from the wisdom and example of the people who went before us, by reading their biographies and autobiographies; from their printed words, the inspirational dead can still speak to us, if we will listen.
In conclusion, if there were people out there who had genuine and reliable psychic abilities, they would surely be in a position to take the business world by storm, and consistently out-perform their psychically talentless co-workers. Alas - I suspect that you, gentle reader, are very likely to be as completely non-gifted in the psychic department as me, and that we will never, it seems, enjoy such an advantage.
However, I hope I have shown that there are plenty of skills, techniques and sensitivities available to us that should more than make up for our lack of hypothetical psychic talent. What you and I need to do is bestir ourselves and start to develop and use our intuition, our ability to decode body language, our influencing skills, our unconscious minds and our superb powers of imagination - and then we too can make it all happen.