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Stacey Demarco is giving witches a good name, writes Nadia Arsalane

When you think about witches you conjure up the image of crooked noses, pointy hats, an evil cackle and a black cat.
  
But blonde Stacey Demarco, who “came out of the broom closet” in her early 20s, couldn’t be further from the stereotype.

  
Granted, she may have two cats but she insists they are black and white and promises she has never used a broomstick for getting around town.
  
“When you think of witches, people think of mind control, Satanism, black cats, I can give you the list,” she said over the phone from Sydney.
  
“I think that’s changing a lot, people on the witches path is growing. We have doctors, lawyers; you name it we’ve got it. We’ve had a bad PR day for the last 3000 years, you know, we’ve been burnt, we’ve been tortured, we’ve been laughed at. I’ve had my wheelie bins burnt. I’ve been ordered out of cafes.
  
“You have a coffee in the same place every day then they find out you are a witch and say I’m no longer welcome here.”
  
Her mother also had a hard time dealing with the revelation. She said, “oh my god it’s a cult” — but now regularly rang her on a full moon to see what she was up to.
  
Because of her psychic ability Demarco was asked to join the judging panel for the new Channel 7 show The One, which pits Australia’s most gifted psychics against each other, along with sceptic Richard Saunders.
  
She says she was pleasantly surprised when asked by producers to join the show because she had been used in program pitches that made psychics look bad.
  
“The premise of this show is to make up your own mind,” she said.
  
“We have some really, really tough parameters. They have to get up there and perform under immense pressure. They are put in a very unreal situation, with time limits, a live audience. So you are seeing a wide variety of people with a wide variety of skills. So they either crash and burn or succeed beautifully in front of your eyes. It’s compelling.”
  
The yin to Demarco’s yang in The One is Saunders, a self-confessed sceptic who spends most of his time investigating paranormal and pseudo-science but says he has yet to find scientific proof to change his disbelieving mind.
  
Saunders admits most people who claim to have had paranormal experiences are not lying but genuinely believe they have seen a UFO or have psychic ability. However, he said his investigations had never found the sightings or powers to be true.
  
Asked if the show had changed his mind, the former web designer, who is also vice-president of the Australian Sceptics, refused to reveal if he had been converted.
  
“When I was younger I believed everything. I thought UFOs were real and I was so interested in these things I began to research. The more I researched people’s claims — it didn’t live up to my expectations.”
  
But former corporate whiz-kid Demarco said believing in the paranormal did not mean you couldn’t be scientific and said she got annoyed when people assumed that she did not have any evidence to back up her theories.
  
“If you go online you’d see the amount of scientific minds, and we are talking Nobel prize winners here, that are open to this,” she said.
  
“Sceptics try to make out that you have to be unscientific and irrational to want to believe in this stuff. But the leading physicists at the moment are incredibly open to the after-life and the ability to be able to do this.
  
“They’re saying looking at sub-atomic particles and that kind of thing, there’s not just a possibility but a probability of alternate worlds and the ability of time and space to be squashed together. So it’s not just possible it’s probable. It’s a very nice trick on behalf of the sceptics to say that it’s irrational.”

The One airs on Channel 7 on Tuesdays at 7.30pm.