But, that doesn't necessarily mean there is no such thing, adds BANACHEK, who admits to often having "strange experiences." BANACHEK says that if there really are such things as mental telepathy or the ability to move objects with the mind, the proof is "elusive."

BANACHEK himself daily performs such feats as bending silverware by looking at it "reading" people's minds and predicting the future. He has been able to do such things since he was a kid and has made a career of it, but he still refuses to call himself or what he does "psychic."

BANACHEK, 35, was born in England and began to realize the existence of his "powers" as a teenager in the United States. Since 1982 he have lived in Houston, currently in the Memorial area.

So what is his ability? Primarily, it is illusion. "I create the illusion of a sixth sense using the five known senses. It's slight-of-mind, knowing how people will react when I say or do certain things."

He uses as an example the detailed observations and deductions by which Sherlock Holmes solved cases. His thought processes were always explained at the end, says BANACHEK, but if they hadn't been, it could have appeared to many people that Holmes had psychic abilities.

Another key ingredient is "charisma," an ability to manipulate people's minds and emotions. BANACHEK considers this a dark and scary aspect of mentalism because of its negative potential -- the ability of a Hitler or a Jim Jones or thousands of self styled "psychics" and "faith healers" to ruthlessly use people's own vulnerabilities toward their own gain.

BANACHEK describes one of his many experiences in psychic debunking. He and several colleagues infiltrated a faith healer's show and found that the evangelist's wife and assistants secretly recorded personal information about people in the audience before the show and passed it along to the faith healer on stage via a radio circuit. BANACHEK scorns the use of such outright deception, and especially the abuse of people's religious faith.

The illusion of psychic phenomena is closely linked with naturally occurring coincidences, BANACHEK says. For example, as he and his wife were driving along Westheimer recently, they turned to each other and began to say the name of a friend whom they had not mentioned recently. Was it ESP?

BANACHEK figured out that what had subconsciously triggered the thought of this friend in both their minds simultaneously was a truck they had passed moments before that looked like the friend's truck.

Still, it's a long stretch from that kind of incident to escaping from a nine-foot-deep hole in the ground.. BANACHEK say he, under the name of Steve Shaw, is the only person to be buried alive - handcuffed and chained in a glass casket - nine feet underground and to have escaped unassisted. He's done it twice, in Los Angeles and Japan, for television specials and says he is willing to do it again "for the right amount of money." It is, after all, he says, a lot of hard work."

Mostly he does corporate events and trade shows, where his illusions have proven endlessly intriguing and entertaining.