Chance of a ghost.(The Straggler)(occult fiction)(Viewpoint essay)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I WAS somewhat surprised recently to be told by a friend that she had had a "reading" done. I didn't grasp her meaning immediately. The Church of Scientology came first to mind. Don't they have some ritual (sacrament?) of wiring you up to a device that locates Bad Thoughts? Then, getting more up to date, and having just read Steven Pinker's New York Times piece on the topic, I wondered if she had been to one of those services that sequence your genome for you.

It was neither. My speculations had been too up to date. My friend had, she told me, been to a "psychic counselor."

"You mean ... a fortune-teller?" I asked, honestly seeking clarification.

This was apparently a faux pas. "I knew you'd make fun of it," she sniffed. "Should never have told you."

She thereafter refused to divulge any details of the "reading." Had I been more tactful, I might have learned the precise technique she'd submitted to. Crystal ball? Tarot cards? Palmistry? In China they read the moles and blemishes on your skin.

I feel pretty sure, at least, that my friend's early-21st-century "psychic counselor" was more presentable than the famous one Captain Gronow attended in Paris circa 1820: