A Tale of Two Psychics
Copyright 1997 G.R. Morton
On Halloween night, just after midnight, the peace of the Amytyburg police
department was disturbed by the creak from the front door. A wizened old
woman with a gray scarf covering scraggly unkempt white hair stared in at
the eight officers. She was wearing a brown blouse and an ankle-length
plaid skirt. Bright red socks atop clunky clog-like shoes peaked out
below the skirt. Her two sunken eyes peered out over a hawk nose giving
the decided appearance of a bird's stare.
The old hag saw 8 officers at various desks. At the main desk, high above
the floor, sat Sgt. Dunn, a 34-year veteran. Sitting on his lap was a huge
potbelly acquired from a career of eating donuts. His round face shook as
it spoke to Officer Young, a tall lanky fellow who obviously feared this
huge man. Young had a name that fit his status in life. He had just
gotten out of the academy and was assigned to the graveyard shift. He got
all the bad assignments. Officer Smith. sat across the room typing a
report. His red hair made him appear somewhat like Carrottop. Smith was
delighted to have Young in the department, since Smith was the secondmost
junior officer. His status had improved when Young showed up a few weeks
back. Five other officers were scattered around the room giving the
appearance of being useful when in fact none of them wanted to be out in
the cold this night.
"Excuse me. There has been a murder," the old woman whispered.
Sgt. Dunn stopped and looked toward the diminutive woman.
"There has been a murder? Where?" the sergeant asked.
"At 1100 Elm street," the woman said.
"Please tell me about it, starting with your name and address," the
sargent ordered, reaching for his notepad and pen.
"I am Madam Rubella, I live over in Jonesville. I am a psychic. In a
vision my spirit guide showed me the murder scene. It happened tonight. The
owner of that house is lying dead in the bedroom, shot through the head.
It was a lover's quarrel."
Sgt. Dunn stopped writing stared at the old woman. "You mean you dreamed
this?"
"No!, Definitely not. It was a vision. I told you I have psychic powers. "
"So how do you really know that a murder occurred there. Did you drive by
and see it happen?"
"I have never been in your city before."
"Wait here," Sgt. Dunn ordered, pointing to a chair at the side of the
room. "We will check it out."
With that Dunn called Officer Young aside and ordered him to go to the
house and check it out.
"But this old lady is crazy," said Young,"Why should I go check it out?"
"Because people confess their crimes in all sorts of ways. This old lady
may live at that house and is hoping that she can tell us about the crime,
clear her conscience and then disappear before we realize she is the
murderer. Now go check it out!"
When officer Young arrived at 1100 Elm, he saw a For Sale sign on the
curb. As he walked up to the porch, he saw that the living room window was
ajar. After knocking loudly on the door for several minutes, he decided to
break the rules and enter the house. There was no furniture on the first
floor. His flashlight showed no blood stains anywhere. Climbing the stairs,
he entered each of the bedrooms and found absolutely nothing. No blood, no
body, no murder. Wanting to be thorough, Officer Young went out back and
looked for freshly dug graves, but the grass cover was unbroken, even the
flowerbeds were covered in grass. No sign of a murder.
When Young arrived at the precinct house, he immediately reported his
results to Officer Dunn. Going over to where the hag sat, Dunn said
sternly, "Madam, there was no murder at that house. It would seem that
your psychic abilities are not working very well."
Just at that moment the front door opened again. All heads turned to view
the spectacle which had just entered the room. A very alluring woman with
long blond hair stood at the door. She was dressed all in black: black
high heels, black stockings, a satin black dress with short sleeves and
sitting atop her golden hair was a black sombrero-type hat with little
round balls dangling from the rim. Her golden hair was arranged perfectly
across her shoulders, the contrast of her hair against the black was
stunning.
"May I help you," Sgt Dunn purred as seven other voices offered their
assistance to this black clad woman.
"Who do I see about reporting a murder?" she said, her voice a silky
smooth alto.
"Me," said eight voices in unison.
Sgt. Dunn exerted his authority. "Young, charge this 'psychic' with
filing a false report. There was no murder as she reported. I will take
your report, Miss....?"
"Miss Farsight, Candy Farsight", the young woman cooed.
Young was mad. As the least senior of the officers, he had to work with
the old lady, while everyone else was going to get to gawk at the beauty.
Sgt. Dunn led Miss Farsight to his desk. Six suddenly unoccupied officers
followed, Officer Smith pulled out a chair for Miss Farsight helping her
get seated.
"Tell me what happened," Sgt. Dunn said in his most friendly voice,
sucking in his pumpkin-sized gut, hoping beyond hope that this alluring
female wouldn't notice that he had eaten a few too many donuts.
"I am a psychic. I have visions," Candy said as she popped a stick of
chewing gum into her mouth. "I had a vision of a murder at 1000 Elm Street."
"Just a second," interrupted Officer Smith, who pulled the sergeant aside.
"She isn't a psychic, she is a stripper. I saw her down at Joe's Bar and
Grill, last night. Farsight is her stage name. She paints eyes on her..."
"NOT NOW!!!" growled Sgt. Dunn. Turning to Miss Farsight, he said, "Excuse
me, my young colleague doesn't know when not to interrupt." He turned and
glowered at Smith, then smiled again at Miss Farsight. "I'm sorry please
continue."
"That's alright. I heard what he said and I am used to such disbelief.
Just because I entertain doesn't mean I can't be a psychic. In my vision I
saw blue men descending from the sky in a flying saucer. Red men with
horns and pointed tails came up out of the ground to fight with the blue
men. They all used blue and red death rays during their fighting. It was
blinding. Unfortunately, the old man who lived in the house, was caught in
the crossfire. He will be found dead on his kitchen floor, killed by a blue
ray. What happened is that the red men turned his dog into a slug, which
left a trail of liquid across the floor of the kitchen. While the old man
was trying to make it to his basement, looking for cover, he slipped on the
slug trail, just as a blue ray shot through his kitchen. The blue ray
struck him in the chest and burned a hole through him, killing him.
Immediately after this, a red ray hit him. That was when the shadowmen
showed up."
"The shadow men???" sighed Sgt. Dunn.
"Yes," Candy popped her gum at the same time. "They were real spooky.
They spread their shadows over everything and none of the deathrays would
work. Without any weapons, the red men went back into the ground and the
blue men got back into their space ship and headed up to space."
"Wait here a minute," Sgt. Dunn said. He pulled Smith aside. "Since you
are so eager to get involved in this case, I want you to go check this
report out. It's 1000 Elm Street.
Smith exploded. "I told you she isn't a psychic. She is here only because
this is "Nut Night" in Amytyburg! It is a waste of time to go look at this.
I mean, are we supposed to believe in flying saucers, blue men, red devils,
dogs turning into slugs and shadowmen? Get real."
"Go," Dunn ordered.
Smith went out to the house. The front door was open but it was dark
inside. "Hello," he yelled into the house. He received nothing but
silence in return. Turning on his flashlight and entering the house, he
found an old man dead in the kitchen. A frayed electrical cord was in the
man's hand. His bare feet were in a puddle of water. There was a burn mark
on the man's shirt near the chest. The shirt showed signs of having been
set on fire briefly before extinguishing itself.
Finding the circuit breaker box, Smith tried to turn the house lights on.
They went on for a second before shutting off again. Apparently, Smith
had just given the old man another jolt of electricity. Smith called in the
forensics guys and headed back to the station house.
"She was right," he said to Dunn, "There was an old man dead in the
kitchen, electrocuted by a shock to the chest. While she is correct that
there is a dead body, her tale is so fanciful that it can't be believed.
Everyone knows that there are no little red devils living under ground,
blue men don't come from flying saucers and dogs don't turn into slugs. She
is a nutcase."
Sgt. Dunn went over to where the two psychics were seated. The two women
had spent the previous thirty minutes telling each other their stories.
"It appears that you were correct, Miss Farsight, about there being a
death, but it didn't happen the way you said it did. The old man was
electrocuted, plain and simple. We found an electric cord next to him. How
did you really know about this death? Come on, tell me." Sgt. Dunn filled
her in on the details.
"I didn't know about it in any other fashion than through my psychic
powers. And I was absolutely correct. The blue men put the electric cord
next to the old man to cover their tracks. They didn't want you to know
that they existed." Candy protested. "
"Come on," Sgt. Dunn prodded, "We also didn't find the giant slug."
"But you found the slug trail. That is what the water was, the slug
trail," she replied.
"Look, lady, we didn't find any giant slug. It doesn't exist."
"You haven't found the slug YET!" she protested. "It simply crawled off
into the night. Look longer, search the neighborhood. You will find the
slug."
"There were no shadowmen either," Dunn stated.
"They turned off the electricity and stopped the war. Can't you see that
they HAD to have been there or the electricity would still be on. My story
matches the facts of the murder scene. See, I am a true psychic."
Dunn shook his head in disbelief.
The old woman, hearing all this, broke in, "Honey, your story is so
far-fetched that no one will believe what you say. There are no shadowmen,
boogy men, or slug-dogs. Scientifically, everything you say is hocus pocus.
You are willing to believe anything in order to explain this death."
"Yeah? Well your tale didn't fit any of the facts where you said there
was a murder. There was no body, no blood, no gun. In other words, there
is no correspondence between your tale and the scene at 1100 Elm Street.
You better find a new line of work. "
"I only got one digit in the address wrong," said the old woman. "That
fits pretty closely. And there was a death in the neighborhood. When you
think about it, I am really pretty close to what actually happened. Spirit
guides don't always give all the details."
"I don't think either of you has any psychic ability," said Dunn.
The old woman frowned. "I do to have psychic ability. I told you that
there was a death tonight. After all, it is the basic idea that counts.
There was a death, I was the first to tell you about it. This floozie is a
copy cat. The details are just details. Details just get in the way."
"Bull," said Candy. "My description was basically correct. It matched the
data."
"With the wildest tale this side of Mars," retorted the hag. "Your account
can't be true because it makes me believe the unbelievable."
"Well your account can't be true because not a single fact that you report
fits the scene." Candy turned to the men in the precinct house. "Who would
you rather believe, me or her?"
"You," said seven voices, each hoping to impress Candy and thus hoping to
receive her favors.
Sgt. Dunn remained silent, shaking his head. He knew that neither of the
women had psychic abilities. Why can't someone come up with a factual
eyewitness account which both fits the facts of the death scene AND
doesn't require believing in the unbelievable.
End of tale
The application
The point of this tale is to illustrate that when a psychic comes in and
tells us they have special knowledge we use the standard of truth that Sgt.
Dunn uses. If the story doesn't fit the facts of the scene, we reject any
claim of special knowledge. Similarly, if we must believe in little blue
men, we reject the explanation as fanciful and once again reject the claim
of special knowledge.
So why when we come to the Bible, and to an account of the flood, do we
change our standard of truth? The Bible claims special knowledge, called
revelation. What we would not tolerate when evaluating the claims of the
two psychics above, we readily tolerate when evaluating the claims of the
Bible. Young earth creationism is like Candy. Their account matches the
details of the flood account. This is a very alluring position and a large
number of Christians follow it. But such a view requires believing the
unbelievable. Science goes against almost everything they say. But on the
other hand, the position which advocates that the flood occurred in
Mesopotamia, the Black Sea or Caspian basin, is like the old woman. Any
flood, as long as it has rising waters, and even if it has NO
correspondence with the details given in the Bible is considered a possible
source for the Noahic account. Details don't matter. This is similar to the
old woman's claim that any death in the town will suffice to support her
claim to having psychic ability.
As I said above, I usually get everyone hopping mad at me when I write one
of these stories, (which is why I don't do it often), but it does seem to
me that the standards of truth which we would use for the two psychics
should be the same we would use for any apologetical issue.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm