To Londoners, Belgravia conjures images of the rich and famous, fashionable shops and stylish hotels - not to mention those types of businesses that take exclusivity to such an extreme that you have to ring a bell before you are allowed to enter. And so when I passed a block of just such businesses how surprised I was to read one sign in particular - Psychic, Palmistry and Tarot Readings. Right there unashamedly sandwiched between accountants and solicitors.

After a quick double-take, I walked away from that sign only steps away from the Prada and Gucci shops of Sloane Square and I wondered to myself:

When did going to a psychic become chic?

Twenty years ago, had word got out that a civil servant (of even the most modest rank) had consulted a psychic it would have landed the government on the front page of the newspapers under a sensational headline linking it to Voodoo Politics . However, today it hardly raises an eyebrow to hear that a world leader has regular readings.

A feature in a leading magazine recently indicated that advertising space for the paranormal professions had increased exponentially over the past five years. Similarly, there appears to have been an explosion in the number of people claiming "psychic" as their job title.

And when you look at listings for workshops, lectures and even events at major theatres previously reserved for pop stars, the general public seem to have whet an appetite for those Victorian interests of mediumship and table-rapping.

Coming from a family in which spirit communication was as natural as talking to those still with us, all of this is just part of life. But somehow without me noticing, psychics have gone mainstream. We're on television, radio and, of course, the internet. I am sure that it was not overnight and that with a bit of investigation one would find that it's been a gradual process.

Whether overnight or long-term evolution, the great unwashed masses have shifted their way of thinking about reality, the human spirit, life patterns, and even taking the giant leap to linking spiritual stresses to physical illnesses. It's as if this movement toward an extended consciousness has been an implicit acknowledgement that our traditional models of the real world were no longer satisfactory and as complete as we had once believed.

Psycho-analysis was replaced by life coaching. Life coaching appears to be merging into intuitive assessments. And while the tools of the trade come in and fall out of vogue, one interesting theme seems to be running through it all - we want our problems to be solved and we want to put less into arriving at the solution. To an extreme, we seem to be saying that we aren't going to spend years on the couch to find out what's wrong when we can simply ring up a psychic who cuts to the chase.

Such a fast-food approach to problem-solving only has merit when we take the energy we saved by having the psychic tell us what the problem is and apply it to implementing the life changes to support the advice given. So the next time you pass a sign for a psychic or come across one online and are tempted to book a reading, just remember that a psychic won't change your life for you but they might be able to show you how.

Until next week,

Kindest regards,

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