Exploring the mystique of psychics: A journey through ’Look Into My Eyes’
A skeptic’s unexpected journey
Not many documentaries have to contend with an audience that might dismiss their subject matter as nonsense. Yet, filmmaker Lana Wilson embraced this challenge when she decided to delve into the emotionally charged world of psychics in New York City. As a self-admitted skeptic, Wilson’s journey began in an unexpected place: the office of a psychic, seeking solace after the 2016 election.
“I couldn’t believe I was walking in there. I was never a religious person,” Wilson shares over Zoom. “Yet this day, I found myself going to a psychic for comfort — and I did feel comforted. And I thought, ‘What does it mean that I just felt better after I talked to this stranger for five minutes?'”
The birth of ‘Look Into My Eyes’
This question lingered in Wilson’s mind for years as she worked on behind-the-scenes documentaries about Taylor Swift and Brooke Shields. Her quest for answers culminated in the creation of Look Into My Eyes, a documentary released by A24. The film, which premiered in New York and is set for wider release, offers a glimpse into the lives of seven psychics, their sessions, and their personal histories. Some even confess doubts about their own paranormal abilities, while others claim extraordinary feats, such as diagnosing a feline urinary tract infection through telepathy.
Embracing doubt and discomfort
“Personally, I’m all for a viewing experience where there’s doubt, where there’s dubiousness, where you’re kind of uncomfortable,” Wilson says. “Even if you think this is artificial, you can still have this real emotional experience. That’s how I feel if I go to see a play. This is all fake and all contrived, yet I’m having a very real, vivid experience that’s incredibly meaningful.”
Casting the psychics
The production, shot during the COVID pandemic, began with an intense casting process. Wilson and her crew met with over 150 psychics across New York’s five boroughs, each time requesting a personal reading. While some offered generic fortune cookie messages, Wilson sought out those who genuinely aimed to connect with their clients. Many of these psychics were already familiar with each other and regularly participated in group seances.
“They are undeniably people who are not just trying to make money. They’re sincerely trying to connect and give some sort of comforting or healing experience to the person they’re sitting with,” Wilson explains. To avoid attracting aspiring actors, she initially withheld the fact that they were making a documentary.
The creative connection
Interestingly, many of the psychics Wilson cast had creative backgrounds. One expressed admiration for John Waters, while another worked on scripts in an office filled with printed screenplays. This blend of fictional storytelling and psychic intuition resonated with Wilson.
“Maybe I’m just drawn to people who remind me of myself,” Wilson half-jokes. “You want to make a film with someone who you enjoy spending time with. I like talking to them about movies. We had a lot in common.”
The production process
Once the cast was set, the production team began organizing sessions, advertising free readings across the city, and meeting prospective clients over Zoom. A last-minute cancellation led to an unexpected reunion between a psychic and a former classmate, resulting in a poignant session where they attempted to reach a peer who had died by suicide.
“Even though someone’s gone, you are still connected to them. You are still in a relationship to them because they’re still affecting you,” Wilson reflects. “There are so many things that we believe in that we don’t see. That stuff is important to us as humans because we’re living in a world that, on the surface, makes no sense. It is terrifying. There is no meaning in it. And we have to find ways to survive as humans, to find meaning, and to find a template for organizing morality and our thoughts.”
The intersection of faith and the paranormal
Wilson draws parallels between the practice of psychics and organized religion, noting that several of the film’s subjects had religious backgrounds but left their faith communities due to disagreements with conservative values. The documentary also highlights the significant presence of LGBTQ individuals within the psychic community, both as clients and practitioners.
“They all had a kind of formative experience with loss or with some kind of trauma,” Wilson says. ”In some cases, that is what led them to seek out a psychic themselves.”
A disarming opening
The documentary’s opening sequence features an E.R. doctor seeking to communicate with a young girl who died from a gunshot wound decades earlier. This intense and shaky monologue sets the tone for the film, aiming to engage even the most skeptical viewers.
“You can’t tell if it’s a therapy session or what. You have no idea. It also looks like a documentary interview. And you think, ‘Is this an expert being interviewed for a documentary?’ You don’t know,” Wilson says. “It’s hearing this scientific, rational doctor assume that there is an afterlife and that that afterlife is reachable. Opening with something unexpected is the number one way of accounting for the assumption that a lot of people who come to watch the movie will be skeptical.”
The essence of ‘Look Into My Eyes’
The playful reveal that the doctor’s speech is a preamble to a reading request underscores the true focus of Look Into My Eyes: the intriguing labor of psychics and the connections they strive to foster with their clients, rather than the veracity of their abilities.
“I did explore a little bit of talking to clients after their sessions, but putting that into a verbal explanation just corrupted the experience of the film,” Wilson says. “It just becomes about: is this real or not? It’s too straightforward. If the psychic predicted something, it came true or it didn’t. Eh! That’s too simple.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.