That may seem a slight exaggeration, but a new survey conducted by Access/BMRB indicates that most Britons think they have psychic powers.

Half of the population claims to have had a premonition in a dream, while 60pc believe in the possibility of psychic abilities. This suggests that the paranormal is entering the mainstream of everyday life, at least in the UK.

The survey, carried out on more than 1000 adults, also found that greater than 25pc of respondents said they had known a family member was suffering illness or severe problems before being told. Forty-three percent claimed that they had read someone else’s thoughts.

Interestingly, more than two-thirds said they knew when someone else was looking at them, even if they were out of sight. This has been confirmed by the experiments of Dr Rupert Sheldrake, and outlined in his book: The Sense Of Being Stared At.

Sheldrake has confirmed that there are “spiritual” fields, detectable by observation rather than instrument, though these are being developed. He calls them morphic and morphogenic fields. It’s a fruitful area of study and one we will come back to in the future posts.

I’ve been checking up on some of the reviews of the Peaceful Warrior movie and they seem pretty mixed, as author Dan Millman said over on our Celebrity at Work blog. However, the audiences were not so critical. Here are a few snippets:

“By turns a riveting study of the world of competitive gymnastics, a parable for an alternative vision for today’s society, and a study in the psychology of mentoring, ‘Peaceful Warrior’ is a satisfying movie-going experience, with or without ‘the message’.”
– Les Wright, CULTUREVULTURE.NET

“While speaking with Millman recently about Peaceful Warrior, the author confirmed that my Chicken Soup Theory had severely plagued the many versions of script.”
– Kevin Biggers, FILMSTEW.COM

“I found some enjoyment by watching it as though it were an updated, Americanized version of some 1980 Hong Kong movie about training at the Shaolin Temple — which it pretty much is, come to think of it.”
– Andy Klein, LOS ANGELES CITYBEAT

“This woozily uplifting saga is big on homilies and deficient in just about everything else.”
– Peter Rainer, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

“The filmmakers can’t be faulted for trying; it’s a decent effort, but nevertheless misses out in both the mind and body categories, and rather overdoes the spirit.”
– Bridget Byrne, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE

“The sometimes dreamy pace of Peaceful Warrior is offset by good rapport among Nolte, co-star Scott Mechlowicz and an engaging ensemble cast.”
– David Germain, ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Peaceful Warrior begins promisingly, with welcome doses of quirky humor holding the syrupy bathos at bay, yet it ultimately becomes just another average inspirational, sports-themed flick, albeit with an overlay of New Age philosophizing.”
– Timothy Knight, REEL.COM

“It may often seem like an extra-pretentious Karate Kid for grown-ups, but Warrior’s soul lessons go much deeper, to universally vital places.”
– Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

“Strong performances by Scott Mechlowicz as Millman and Nick Nolte as the mysterious mechanic who changes his life ground the film in effective drama.”
– Sheri Linden, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“The film is better than it has any right to be, considering the prosaic source.”
– Ruthe Stein, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Well, critics tend toward cynicism and they did their job well. Readers of the book may hold different views. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s released here in England.

Can there be humour in spirituality? It depends which religion, or none, you are thinking of. Some faiths are very definitely humourless, others mildly good natured.

But Zen can be uproariously funny. In its attempts to shake the student out of the torpor of familiar thought patterns, it will adopt almost any subterfuge.

Here’s a passage from my book, The Nirvaneans, to be published by Humdrumming next year. It concerns Master Rinzai of Chinese Ch’an, founder of the Rinzai Zen sect of Japan:

Master Rinzai (Lin Chi, died 866 AD) was undoubtedly a tough character. The transmission from Huang Po (Obaku) appears to be full of violence and mayhem. First Huang Po administers thirty blows to his hapless charge, then chases Rinzai out. Later, Rinzai returns and slaps Huang Po, with the comment, “There really isn’t much to Master Obaku’s Zen!” The two giants of Ch’an seem to be constantly squaring up like boxers intent on flattening each other.

In later years when Rinzai was a fully-realized master, he had an encounter with Tokusan in similar style. On hearing that this master would instruct his monks and say: “Whether you can speak or not, either way thirty blows,” Rinzai told Rakuho: “Go and ask him why the one who understands gets thirty blows. When he starts to beat you, grab his stick, hit him back, and see what he will do.”

Rakuho did as he was bidden, then returned to Rinzai with the news that when he had hit Tokusan, the master immediately retired to his quarters.

“So far I have suspected that fellow,” mused Rinzai, “but since it has happened like this, do you for yourself now see Tokusan?” When Rakuho hesitated, Master Rinzai hit him.

The nub of this story seems to be the egolessness, or otherwise, of Tokusan. But why should there be such a welter of blows? It has a certain entertainment value, but is it religion?

Zen arose out of Buddhism because the Chinese eye spotted what it saw as a major weakness in the Indian Buddhist system. The flaw was a tendency to formularization. As in other religions, the basic principles, intended to help the novice towards understanding, had lost their original force. Now they were just familiar phrases for chanting and disputation. What had once contained a powerful meaning for unlocking the truth had “degraded” to mantra, a repetitious, magical formula for inducing a trance-like state, which might have its uses in other contexts, but not in this one.

Michael Fass, 61, the Episcopalian priest of Rosslyn Capel near Edinburgh which featured heavily in the ending to The Da Vinci Code, will leave his post in July.

Reverend Fass said he has been overwhelmed by thousands of Da Vinci fans visiting the chapel following Dan Brown’s claims that the Holy Grail is situated in one of the columns, known as the Apprentice Pillar. The priest said the fabulously ornate building has “become a Disneyland for Da Vinci Code fans.”

Before Da Vinci, Rosslyn had 9,500 tourists a year. Last year that rose to 117,000 visitors. Even more are expected this year after the chapel was used as a location in the film version of the book.

Michael Fass has been at the church for nine years. Yesterday, a friend said: “Rev Fass is a serious and committed man. He thought it was unbearable when services were interrupted by tourists. This has been a place of worship for hundreds of years. You cannot just trample over that because of a book. He raised his concerns with the trust that runs the chapel but the impression was that their interest lies in only getting more people through the door. He was swimming against the tide.”

One can’t help wondering what the size of the congregation was before the book. The Da Vinci Code has certainly made the Church and Christianity more exciting subjects than they were before.