You’re a seer and you may not even know it

So many of us have hidden talents and yet let them go to waste for lack of proper guidance.

Just think of all those would-be Bachs and Beethovens who became sales managers or accountants because their parents skimped on music lessons and didn’t even have a piano in the house.

The power of divination is one such talent, the kind you may well have without realising it. Yet a helping hand can pull this power to the forefront of the numerous others you know you do possess.

As someone who is blessed with this ability, I’d like to share my recent experience with you, hoping that this will point you in the right direction.

The other day a story broke about a gunman who shot dead three tram passengers in Utrecht. No information on the shooter was initially proffered for the simple reason that he hadn’t yet been apprehended.

That’s when I unshackled my ESP powers.

I sat back, closed my eyes and pictured Utrecht, a lovely university city with a myriad of cafes bracketing a picturesque river. When I visited the place some years ago, it had a nice, warm buzz about it, devoid of the ugly discordant notes one hears in, say, some parts of Amsterdam.

The key to uncovering the mystery of the crime was to clear my mind of everything extraneous to that image and to relax my whole body to a point just short of double incontinence.

That was the secret I had learned long ago, and after a few minutes the key opened the door to the far recesses of my consciousness. Then I saw it all clairvoyantly, as if I myself was one of the passengers diving under the seats on that Utrecht tram.

In a Damascene flash of epiphany I knew, well, not who the gunman was, but what he was. An inner voice resounded through my cranial cavity, and it told me in no uncertain terms that the shooter was – are you ready for this? – a Muslim.

The revelation hit me with the power of an electric jolt. How could it be, I asked my inner voice. A whole bevy of US presidents and British PMs, not to mention countless European politicians who don’t really count, told us that Islam is a religion of peace – and I trusted them implicitly.

After all, such responsible individuals can’t possibly say inane, ignorant things for some ill-conceived political reasons, can they? Of course they can’t.

I look at those wise, eminent sages, such as the Bushes Senior and Junior, Obama, Blair, Cameron, Macron, Merkel et al, and ask myself: Who am I to dispute their judgement on anything, and especially on such a sensitive issue? A worm under those titans’ feet, that’s who.

Hence that flash of inspiration didn’t come from an accumulation of historical data or, God forbid, reason. So much more amazing it is, so much more of a proof that I’ve been blessed with ESP powers independent of my mind and senses.

I must confess that I haven’t just discovered this talent. In fact, it comes into play each time a terrorist act is committed and the perpetrator’s identity hasn’t yet been revealed.

Sensing a glittering career opportunity as a stock market analyst or perhaps a political consultant, I’ve tried to bring my gift to bear on other areas, but failed every time.

Evidently my clairvoyance is highly selective: it only works to tell me in advance that just about every terrorist is a Muslim. Actually, thinking about this now I realise that’s not quite so.

I also instantly know that not only is the terrorist a Muslim, but also that he is an alienated, drug-addled loner with mental problems, who is in no way motivated by either the religion of peace or by the sublime civilisation it has spawned.

That’s how Gokmen Tanis, the Utrecht marksman, is described in today’s papers. That’s how all his gun-toting, suicide-belt-wearing, bomb-planting colleagues are always described.

Yet again I don’t dare argue.

Of course, all those Islamic swarms that overran half of Europe in the early Middle Ages and eventually put paid to Byzantium in 1453 were made up exclusively of alienated loners on dope. Of course, their shrieks of Allahu akbar!!! were simply battle cries, not statements of religious allegiance.

My inner voice agrees. Every time I give it a litany of some 300 verses in the Koran that mandate the killing of infidels, the voice comes back with a thundering response: “Think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well, I’ve got news for you: you’re nothing but a racist, Islamophobic reactionary. Sort yourself out, man, before your collar is felt.”

I hope you’ll find this story instructive and use it as a blueprint for unshackling your own powers of selective divination. If that happens, as I hope it will, just make sure you don’t jump to any general conclusions.

Steer clear of generalisations, keep those little epiphanies to yourself, and you’ll be fine.

P.S. New research shows that people’s brains don’t become fully grown-up until their 30s. That’s a good argument for lowering the voting age to 16, don’t you think? If you disagree, use Lord of the Flies for reference.