Interview: Karen Thomas

IF the supernatural is just a load of mumbo jumbo, why do The X Files and Heroes have millions of viewers glued to their TVs?

Fascination for FBI agents Mulder and Scully delving into the unexplainable feeds a voracious appetite for what might lie beyond the five tangible senses. Sceptics of the sixth psychic sense stand no chance against the hordes tuning into Heroes – humans with evolved DNA that bestows a multitude of world-saving super powers.

But according to psychic and former soldier Jock Brocas, everyone has a super power that is just waiting to be tapped into, including those in military uniform. He described a soldier’s innate instinct to sense danger, citing an incident in Afghanistan when a patrol leader’s “bad feeling” about a compound saved his men from being ambushed.

“If we have this natural intuitive ability then we can actually use this in the fight against terrorism, violence, rape and all levels of negativity that we face in the world,” the martial arts expert told Soldier, adding that he was aware of his ability when he joined up for five years’ service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1990 but never let on.

“I have a great passion for it and I’ve had many experiences where it saved my life. I’ve always been able to see auras and I used to see spirits and old soldiers in barracks but in the Army it’s not something that you talk about.”

Brocas has devoted 26 years to following the ancient martial art of Bujinkan Ninjutsu – a way of life for spiritual and physical well-being. His expertise is combined with his Army experiences and subsequent work in the security industry for his first book, Powers of the Sixth Sense. Yet Brocas holds a healthy scepticism for psychic impostors.

“The people who claim to be psychics but won’t even go and pick their own toilet paper unless they’ve talked to their guide, they’re nuts. People do get overly superstitious and that’s not what it’s all about. But once you learn to develop this intuition we all have, you will know the difference between a real intuitive feeling and what is a lot of rubbish coming from your conscious mind or ego.”

The Scottish psychic instructs students in the traditional arts of the ninja and samurai that focus the mind, body and spirit as a whole entity. His first lessons are on accepting a human’s inborn sixth sense and his advice to soldiers searching for their psychic intuition is to use a quiet time to tune into the mind and visualise a peaceful place.

“First of all they need to learn what their intuition is because there’s no point asking someone if they get any psychic vibrations or visions in the mind because they won’t understand it. I would say to them, learn to heed and understand their intuitions, and to start to benefit from that. Soldiers in this day and age are modern-day warriors so maybe it’s time they started to encompass the mind, body and spirit.”