About Jane Doherty

By CHAD WEIHRAUCH
Staff Writer

SOUTH PLAINFIELD — Jane Doherty is a psychic, and she thinks you might be, too.

So … are you getting a premonition she’ll be on TV in the fall?

Doherty, a lifelong borough resident who has been the focal point of hundreds, if not thousands, of seances, readings and ghost investigations over the past two decades, was approached recently by a company working with cable channel TLC about participating in a reality show.

In each episode, Doherty and a small team of paranormal investigators are introduced to a different family that has experienced some sort of spiritual discomfort in their home.

They meet them Friday and stay in the house with the family until Sunday, sleeping on air mattresses on the floor and stalking through the home in the small hours of the morning to find spirit hot spots — “depending on the ghost situation of the house,” Doherty said.

“In every episode — or at least we’re trying in each episode — there’s a skeptic in the family. And one of our goals is to see a change in the skeptic,” she said last week.

The cameras roll the entire time. Several of the shows have been, or will be, filmed in Central Jersey. One involved an investigation at a home in Watchung, Doherty said, and another is scheduled with a family in Warren County.

“One of the recent ones we did, it’s one of the funnier moments, because when you get to the seance and the spirit comes through another person … the one man was so taken back and became a believer,” she said with a laugh. “He said he started going to church.”

The show is scheduled to begin airing on TLC in the fall, said Don Halcombe, a spokesman for the network.

“We are in the process of shooting, and we hope to debut it in October,” he said.

So far, four of 10 episodes have been filmed.

Doherty also saw her first book, “Awakening the Mystic Gift: The Surprising Truth About What it Means to Be Psychic,” published in February. It’s a memoir, and one of the primary themes is that psychic ability is really just a sort of sensory input most people ignore.

Everyone has these antenna, Doherty claims, even if they don’t pay attention to what they’re picking up. In other words, everyone is psychic to some degree.

“Everybody truly has this, and I believe God gave us this tool to have a better life — so we make decisions based on guidance, and not just emotions,” she said.

Doherty, 58, talked about the TLC show — and her life — Thursday in the living room of her home on a small cul de sac off Clinton Avenue. She has a milky complexion, orange hair, pale eyes, and wore purple head to toe, with a pair of matching rings and an amethyst-colored crucifix.

Her standard poodle, Hollywood, cavorted around the living room, where the introduction to one episode of the show had been filmed.

Doherty, who was born and raised in South Plainfield, grew up Catholic — but she doesn’t think her beliefs about psychic ability and faith in God are mutually exclusive. She doesn’t read cards or use other kinds of “magic” tricks. Instead, she feels her way through a situation by waiting for images to come.

And then there’s her stomach, the barometer she uses to indicate the presence of spirits.

“What does happen to me is an unusual phenomenon: When I’m near spirit phenomena, my stomach expands like I’m nine months pregnant,” she said.

Skeptics often are handed a measuring tape and invited to check her waistline for themselves.

The show will feature a trek through homes with a history. In one case, Doherty said the spirit of a man killed in a train accident more than half a century ago had taken up residence in a house about five blocks away.

“We also have an historian that researches the history of the area. But again, I don’t know anything (beforehand). It’s just a process that unfolds,” she said.

Doherty laughed as she named the reason she probably was chosen for the TLC series.

“They loved it because we were characters,” she said. “Can’t help but call me a character, with the expanding stomach.”

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Chad Weihrauch can be reached at (908) 707-3137 or cweihrau@gannett.com.

from the Courier News website www.c-n.com