By Alan Cleaver

Property

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

What does the future hold ?

I ONCE worked for the Spiritualist newspaper Psychic News (pauses for everyone to say the “I knew you were going to say that” joke). It was, curiously, about the only newspaper where you could not read predictions. This surprised many people as they assumed that was the bread and butter of such a newspaper. The “Do you sub next week’s racing results” was the second ‘original’ joke people always fired at me.

But the paper burnt its fingers on predictions in the summer of 1939. There was, at that time, rumours of a war with Germany so editor Maurice Barbanell polled numerous mediums (or more correctly, their spirit guides) to find out if there would be a war. With only one exception, they all said the rumours could be dismissed. And so in August 1939, Psychic News ran with the front-page headline: “There Will Be No War”. And a few weeks later – as Britain went to war – Mr Barbanell declared spirit guides may provide proof of life after death but they could no more predict the future than mere mortals. He therefore banned predictions appearing in the paper.

Fortunately, for those in the housing market the gurus and mystics have no such qualms about foretelling what 2012 holds. So here’s a round-up of The Independent property soothsayers…