His Gifts

Richard In High School

Richard possessed a truly unique gift and he wasn't afraid to share this fact with anyone. Cynics would often visit his ESP demonstrations, intent on making a mockery of the event, but would usually leave shaking their heads. Some of them actually realized that perhaps they did not understand the universe as completely as they previously thought. These folks often left the event with irreconcilable questions bouncing around in their heads.

Skeptics would contend that Richard could somehow see through multiple layers of thick medical tape and three black blindfolds and therefore presumed that he could read the questions submitted by the audience. (Skeptics were invited to inspect the tape and blindfolds before their use and during application). In reality, no individual could have provided the insights that Richard shared unless they were truly clairvoyant. He correctly provided first and last names of friends and relatives (both living and deceased), furnished accurate dates of pending births, identified phone numbers and addresses, confirmed professions and spelled out other detailed circumstances involving people's lives, which were thought "secret". Quite often, Richard would answer people without ever unfolding their paper and would also address issues that were not even written down. In a typical demonstration Richard would usually give a "psychic reading" to half of those in attendance (roughly 50 people in a group of 100) with uncanny accuracy and specificity.

Below, Richard describes how he became aware of his psychic abilities:

"Until I was five years old, I had no awareness of my psychic gifts. Then my parents took me to the Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for a corrective operation on my eyes.

"Following the surgery my eyes were bandaged; I was strapped in bed. But my favorite nurse, a tender, warm-hearted woman, felt sorry for me. She released my hands, making me promise that I would not touch the bandages. The bed had high rails, and there was a rubber ball and a teddy bear in it. Playing idly with the ball, I somehow dropped it over the side of the bed, so I climbed over the side-rail to get it. The nurse found me playing with it in the middle of the room when she returned, bouncing it against the wall, my eyes still bandaged, of course! She was quite upset and after reassuring herself that the bandages were still secure, she put me back in bed and called the doctors. How could I see through the bandage?

"It was most amusing. The doctors, having discovered my disturbing faculty, devised all sorts of games to try to fool me. One doctor would stand at the foot of my bed; the other would remain in the hall and project his voice in order to pretend that he was the doctor near my bed. But he couldn't fool me. Often the two of them would exchange rings, watches, or coats, but I could always tell one from the other with this newly discovered "psychic vision." Psychic vision is not like seeing with your eyes. It is more like seeing with your whole consciousness. While it seems more frontally directed, it does have a much broader horizon of sight than physical vision and yet not with the clarity of physical vision. It is much more like discerning shapes, and objects as in a darkened room at night when there is just enough light to see the outline of things. Also it is sort of pulsating. It comes and goes. It is similar to the ebb and flow of the sea in some ways."