Luke Jermay predicts that Scotland will vote No to independence.
He also says that soon Japanese people living as vampires will be arrested after a botched attempt to rob a blood bank supply company; that Pope Francis will appoint women cardinals; and that, to the relief perhaps of many, The X Factor will come to an end this year.
Over the past 12 months, he has made around 500 predictions, either of global headlines or of events in the lives of individuals, which have turned out to be true – a rate, he points out, though he hasn’t worked out the stats, that is much better than “those who are self-labelled psychics”. But Jermay is not some strange, mystical seer or diviner with a crystal ball. He is a mentalist. In fact, he is often called “the real-life mentalist”, because, formerly he was a consultant on the American CBS hit drama show The Mentalist.
The majority of people, when they hear the word mentalism, are most likely to think of smart-suited, ever-sceptical Derren Brown performing feats of seeming mind control. They don’t tend to imagine a bearded bloke, covered in tats, brandishing tarot cards and doling out predictions of the future like they’re sweeties. That, after all, is the territory of New Agers and psychics, of, as Jermay puts it, “the crazy woman in the bar who predicts someone’s cat is going to die”.
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