I See a Small Digit, 1 to 10 . . . a Thumb!

What's on your mind? Derek Ogilvie, a.k.a. the Baby Mind Reader, with 18-month-old Lily Reingold. (By David Segal -- The Washington Post)

She's disappointed, it turns out, because Rainen is lagging a bit, and has been attending physical therapy and speech therapy five days a week. She was hoping Ogilvie could offer some insight into what, if anything, is impeding the lad.

This takes Ogilvie by surprise, which is a little surprising in itself: One of his more startling assertions is that all babies are psychic and that when he reads their minds, he is reading what they have picked up from the minds of their parents. This often includes memories of events that occurred before birth, because, as Ogilvie tells it, memory is one of the many nutrients that babies absorb in the womb.

Let's just leave aside the medical dimension of this and assume for a moment that Ogilvie is right. You'd figure that if Jenny is wondering about Rainen's development, and the tyke were reading his mom's mind, he would pick up that anxiety and relay it to Ogilvie. Instead, Ogilvie offers minutiae about stoves, shoes and carpets.

"I'm at the mercy of the child," says Ogilvie, sounding resigned. "What's relevant to them might not be relevant to you."

Ogilvie's experience suggests that babies have a rather rich mental life, a notion expanded upon in "The Baby Mind Reader," an autobiography published in England last year. The book includes not just accounts of his finest psychic moments, but his life story: the melancholic youth in Glasgow, the son of a British Airways engineer; his decision to come out in 1994 as a gay man; his boom years as an entrepreneur, investing in bars and earning a fortune, which he then lost on a nightclub that failed. In 2001, he was living on welfare and was visited by his deceased grandmother, who told him to use the psychic powers he'd had since he was 8 years old.

He landed a radio show on a small station in Scotland, working as a medium for people who call in and want to communicate with the dead. The baby specialty came later and immediately proved a superb niche. Parents who have tried everything are often willing to try him. His services are free, he says, but they build his reputation for theater shows for adults, where he charges about $30 a ticket. "I don't work with babies in those theater shows," he says. "That would be crazy."

Not that working with babies in their homes seems sane. That's glaringly clear during visit number two, with Lily Reingold, an 18-month-old just roused from a nap. She rubs her face and smiles. Her mother, Anne, sits on the bed. Ogilvie sits next to Anne. "She's telling me she's got a little bit of a throat infection," he says.

"Not that I know of," Anne says.

"Did you have a little scare about her when you were seven months pregnant?"

No. Nor did Anne have a problem with her right breast, or fall off a rope swing, or have a relative on her dad's side with a missing digit, or go back to school at the age of 27, or hurt a knuckle -- all information that Ogilvie says he learned from Lily.

"Lily!" Anne mock-scolds at one point, "are you making this stuff up?"

The low point comes when Ogilvie declares that Anne's husband, Randy, drives a white car and calls Randy to verify that fact. Randy has never driven a white car. Randy has never had a driver's license. Randy has never driven.

Ogilvie fishes long enough to land a couple of modest nibbles -- yes, a long-discarded sofa did have a faulty arm -- and when he does, he says "Wow," as though he has amazed himself with his own clairvoyance. What's far more amazing, though, is that he refuses to offer any faux-comfort to mothers. He seems unaware that comfort is what they're looking for.

"I was hoping you'd tell me why she doesn't walk yet," Anne says. Ogilvie falls back on his blame-the-baby defense and declares victory.

But even as he puts this performance in the win column, the bummed-out Ogilvie says this wasn't a typical day. Eighty percent of his readings are successful, he says, and when he establishes a solid link with a youngster the results can blow people's minds. His TV appearances, he says, have left moms spluttering in awe.

Anne, however, is not one of those moms.

"Did I freak you out?" he asks Anne as he leaves.

"Not really," she says, chuckling. "Do you want me to be freaked out?"