Review
Can people really see into the future? Can someone's life be predicted? Following a prediction of his sister's death, William Little set out to find the truth about the power of fortune-telling and prophecy. On a journey that takes him to a witches' coven in a haunted wood, on the hunt for murderers with psychic detectives and to the doorsteps of the world's most powerful and revered psychics, William embarks on a quest to find out whether people can see into the future - or if the many millions who consult horoscopes, listen to psychics on TV or read Nostradamus are simply being sold a lie. Through a rollercoaster ride of mystics, mishaps and mayhem, delving into the unconscious mind, he discovers uncomfortable facts that make him reassess his beliefs. In a book that answers the unanswerable about what science, psychics and crystal balls can reveal about tomorrow, he determines to lift the lid on the most sought-after destination of them all - the future. Great to pop into your suitcase!
332pp, 140mm x 222mm, hardback, 2009

Extract
If the future can be told, can it be changed? These are big metaphysical questions. Have our lives already been lived in the future? Is there such a thing as fate? After all, if someone can read the future, then our lives are predetermined, which means we don't have any free will or control over it. If your future has already happened, why bother getting up in the morning?

In order to find out the truth about the future, I'm going to take a perilous journey and go there. I'm going to seek out my future from the best mystics the country and the world have to offer. I'm going to try everything from crystal ball gazers to tarot cards, witches, palm-readers and mediums, to the oldest and wisest gypsy in the most run-down caravan I can find. I won't leave any stone unturned in order to find out the truth. But will they all agree? That's the test. By the end of this journey into my future, how many futures will I have? And will any of it come true? But more importantly, will I still be the same person? If it's just the power of suggestion, what if the things that I hear make me subconsciously take disastrous decisions about my life?

Along this journey into the future I also need to talk to the modern-day mystics - the Derren Browns, the quantum physicists who reckon that there are levels of reality of which we aren't consciously aware. Could quantum physics explain the existence of spirits? I need to speak to psychologists and scientists. And I need to understand what psychics and mystics really believe and what's really going on in their heads when they see the future or speak to the spirit world. Above all else I need to talk to the psychics who claim to have predicted big events, like earthquakes and famous deaths, and the people who keep going back to them time after time. I also need to find out whether astrologers and mediums are tapping into the same 'spiritual' energy source when they predict the future. Are the stars, the planets and mystics' brains all connected in one giant psychic communications web? And I'm going back in time to speak to the original fortune-tellers, the witches, who claim to control nature using spells. Could they put a spell on me to help me see my future more clearly?

But the ultimate test is that I'm going to become a mystic myself. Some psychics believe that only a few have the gift, while others believe everyone is born with psychic powers but we choose to ignore them. Well. I'm going to enrol myself at a psychic school where they reckon they can teach anyone to have mystical powers. So by the time I reach the end of this journey I will be able to answer the biggest question of all - do we have a future? No ifs, no buts, no annoying compromises or partial answers.

But before I put on my walking shoes and hit the road to my future, I have one final worry, and it might put all my plans in jeopardy... Do they already know I'm coming?

From The Psychic Tourist, ?2009 by William Little, published by Icon Books.