A look at the role and meaning of spiritualist meetings.

Emma-Louise Rhodes © 2008.

A cross section of society?

In general, more women attend psychic readings, Spiritualist churches and clairvoyant evenings than men. It would be interesting to take a survey and find out exactly why this is so. Do men feel that Spiritualism is too effeminate for them, due to its association with angels, crystals and spirit guides? Certainly there are plenty of men who are themselves mediums, yet commonly the majority of Spiritualist supporters at a gathering at any given time will be female.

Looking around a typical psychic meeting it is very apparent that the majority of the audience is made up of pairs/small groups of women. Many are parties of friends who, due to the popularity of TV programmes such as Most Haunted, Sixth Sense With Colin Fry and Haunted Homes (the target audience of which is predominantly female) are interested in the supernatural and the possibility of contacting the dead. Others are local healers, Spiritualists or novice psychics who attend the evenings regularly and support the various local groups. Others still are those who have lost loved ones and are looking for an earthly reunion.

The age range of the audience tends to vary from mid-thirties to mid-seventies, younger people usually attending with older sisters or parents. Of course, every crowd is different and it would be a huge error to judge the audience of every psychic evening based on such facts. Location, population and average income all contribute to the type of people present at these events at any given time and in any given town. Nevertheless, it is generally safe to say that in very few cases men outnumber women at such gatherings, unless they are themselves mediums.

The attendance of the working class is always apparent. This may simply be down to the type of venue the evenings are held at, or it might echo back to the fact that subscribers to the early Spiritualist faith (not including table rapping, which was widely practised by the middle/upper class during the Victorian era) were predominantly working class. The founder of the first church in the UK was the socialist reformer David Richmond and the Seven Principles of Spiritualism were allegedly dictated to Emma Hardinge Britten, whilst in a trance, by the dead spirit of Welsh socialist Robert Owen.

Despite the popularity of psychics in the media in recent times, there is still a stigma that goes with being present at clairvoyant evenings, and, perhaps, a well respected local businessmen might think twice before attending. There are several reasons why this is the case. Firstly, it could be due to the fact that trying to conjure up the dead is still seen as slightly risqué in certain circles and not really ‘the norm’. Secondly, the lack of credibility that is achieved in being shown to believe in such doubtful phenomena is a very good reason for a prominent member of the community to reconsider an invitation to such a gathering. Lastly, the fact the Spiritualist movement is still viewed as a dubious splinter group of the Christian faith makes valued men and women alike turn from such ideals without a second curious glance. All of these factors are crucial in the understanding of exactly who attends these evenings and who shuns them.

Faith is meant to be classless, yet regardless of this, Spiritualism still generally attracts the working class. This established, it is interesting to note exactly what is said by the medium(s) during clairvoyant evenings and the level of belief that is required to embrace the attitudes of the Spiritualist faith.

Professional patter

The evening that I partook in was, in my opinion, a good representation of what usually takes place. The medium, a personable man in his early fifties, dressed in a smart dark suit and open neck shirt, amiably flitted from one audience member to the other, giving them an abundance of names from Fred to John to Joan to Elizabeth. Commenting that he didn’t like to give typical names, he continued to do so, presenting his audience with information that could well have related to anyone in the hall at any given time.

Listening intently, I placed myself in the position of every person spoken to and, sure enough, it was very easy to ‘take’ as my own some of the information given to everyone visited by the medium. However, the fact that people were all too ready to accept these statements without question, was even less plausible than the weak utterances of the medium in question.

The many events that I have attended, be it at Spiritualist churches or private evenings, have hung somewhere between being quite polished cold readings and shabby attempts at conjuring up the dead by amateur psychics. The ironic thing with this is that sometimes the most well meaning mediums (those who truly believe in what they are doing) perform poorly, whereas the more calculating psychics (those who are fully aware that they are providing nothing more than cold reading) execute accurate and believable readings.

However, the most important thing, as any comedian or used car salesman will readily tell a novice, is patter and, in order to sustain believable, constant contact with the spirit word, rapid spiel is the best thing to prolong the audience’s interest. Regardless of whether the information given is entirely false, if this is followed up speedily with another torrent of messages from spirit, the sitter in question will hopefully forget the bogus facts that have been presented before.

Regardless of whether the psychic in question is skilled in the art of cold reading, or if they are in fact (sometimes slightly more worryingly) listening to the voices in their head and giving inaccurate information accordingly, their style and manner is extremely important and plays an integral part in how the audience respond and react to them.

Thus my psychic evening trod the tried and tested grounds of mediumistic chatter, inaccurate cold reading and (what is sometimes overlooked but relatively important in terms of clairvoyance) comic quips from the world of spirit.

The usual suspects

The first woman that the medium approached was known to him as a local healer. He told her to keep up her healing and to concentrate more on tuning herself to listen to spirit voices. In fact, this was said to the majority of audience members approached – one of which was told that her tinnitus was actually spirit trying to contact her (whether she actually suffered from the condition was not revealed).

An older couple who had got to the venue quite early and sat right at the front, were approached and given a message from someone in the air force (although they revealed that they both been affiliated with the navy during the war). A woman wearing a cross was told that there was a nun in spirit who wanted to connect with her, and another was asked to contact her sister with whom she hadn’t spoken for a while. The evening progressed very much in the same style, with no surnames, personal information or incredible revelations given. The raffle was then drawn and an announcement of the date of the next meeting made. Most of the audience certainly seemed happy and interested in what they had heard and certainly not begrudging of the £3.50 spent.

The formula used for the evening was quite basic, yet the majority of people there were pleased with what they had witnessed and, furthermore, had attended before and would be there again the next time. The room was arranged cabaret style, with people sitting at tables, the majority of who had got drinks from the bar beforehand. On entry, raffle tickets could also be purchased (the prizes of which were small potted plants and Easter Eggs) and there was generally the air of pleasant chit-chat and friendliness.

Before the medium spoke, the evening’s organiser (a woman in her sixties who was credited herself on her business card as ‘clairvoyant, healer and confident’) briefly addressed the audience, asking them to ‘speak up’ if the spirits chose to come to them, as it was important that ‘they hear your voice and what you have to say, so that the spirits can reply accordingly – a bit like a psychic telephone’. This is commonly asked by mediums and it has always appeared to me that, in speaking, the sitter will no doubt give way additional information in order for the psychic to give them a slightly more accurate reading.

The medium then commenced his forty-five minute first half, spending up to fifteen minutes on a responsive person, but only two or three on a member of the audience who could not connect with what he had to tell them. He was keen to point out, before he even began, that sometimes the spirits are not clear as to who exactly they want to contact and he might well give information to the wrong person. Therefore, he asked his audience to raise their hand if, in fact, they thought that the message was intended for them and not the person he was addressing. Again, I have heard this many times before and it is a perfect representation of a medium hedging his bets and trying to get away with some unconvincing cold reading.

If, at any point, he faltered in what he was saying or got something hugely wrong, the medium would laugh that the spirits were distorting things or joking with him. This is a commonly employed tactic by psychics (even in churches) that allows them to relax and bond with the audience whilst, at the same time, smiling their way through any unfortunate mistakes.

After the break, the same patter continued as before – the last sitter responding badly and not being able to ‘take’ any of the information presented. After this, the medium closed the proceedings quite swiftly, apologising to those who had not visited and informing the audience that he thought ‘that was about it’ from the spirit world for the night (the spirits, who in these cases tend to be keen clock-watchers, finished right on nine-thirty).

Spiritual connection or cheap entertainment?

After the medium had left, the organiser made her way around each table to canvas opinion on what those new to the evening made of it and if they would be coming again. Along with this, she distributed her own personal card to those interested in a private reading at her house.

The general feeling in the hall both before and after was that of expectation and waiting. Will he come to me and, if so, what will be said? Did he give the correct information to those he gave a reading to and, if he did, were they comforted? These thoughts, no doubt, go through the minds of most attending such events.

Regardless of the shortage of solid evidence presented during the evening, the audience, surprisingly, did not seem to be too discouraged. The lack of questioning and the apparent promises from those who attended that they would return, illustrated the fact that the audience might well have been there purely for entertainment. Certainly, admission to such evenings is quite reasonable and cheaper than a theatre or cinema ticket and gives an inexpensive option for a night out.

Undoubtedly clairvoyant evenings are a source of income for the organisers who put them on. The audience figures are usually high and the hire of the halls relatively low. The very fact that the general public pay on the door makes it seem much more like entertainment (not dissimilar to a psychic theatre show with a famous medium, but on a much smaller scale) and the presence of a bar or refreshments of some kind, steer the evening well away from any form of religion. These events also quell the need felt by many to dabble with the spirit world in a very safe manner, without the formality of prayers, hymns and readings. Not unlike the séances held in parlours over a hundred years ago, the evening provided a diversion from the dullness of day-today existence and (for some) experiment without religious connotation.

In essence, clairvoyant evenings are simply an innocent, if not slightly naïve, form of entertainment, where the curious can while away a few hours for a couple of pounds. Conversely, as with any form of Spiritualism, there is always the risk of bringing back upsetting memories to the sitters or false hope, without there being any real substance in what is being said. Maybe, though, the most harmful thing about such events is purely the lack of analytical enquiry that so often accompanies them, along with the startling willingness by the audience to believe in what is sometimes nothing more than bad cold reading presented by an ever cheery con man.

www.emmalouiserhodes.com

John Jackson © UK-Skeptics

Ectoplasm:

• Claim:
  
  Ectoplasm is a product of ethereal energy which usually forms as a fog like mist, solid white mass, or as a vortex. It emanates from various orifices of the medium, most commonly the mouth, nose and ears. Ectoplasm can form into rods which can be used to move objects and even levitate people in their chairs.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Ectoplasm is the fabric chiffon. Chiffon is highly compressible and can be hidden easily about the medium’s body or introduced to her by her assistant. Mediums can cover themselves with the fabric and hide/reveal themselves from behind a black curtain to make themselves look like a materialisation. Chiffon can also be wrapped around rods and other pieces of equipment which are then used to move things around. The chair levitation is achieved by assistants holding one chair leg each and lifting the chair up.

Voice trumpets:

• Claim.
  
  The spirits do not speak loudly so some form of amplification is required. This is usually in the form of a trumpet which is placed on a table. During the séance the trumpet is often seen to levitate and move around whilst the spirit voice comes through it.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  The trumpet is often marked with a luminous paint so that the levitation can be seen in the dark. The trumpet simply has a hidden extendable handle which the medium (or assistant) uses to pick it up and wave it around in a way that looks too fast to be produced by someone holding it. The voices are produced by the medium who uses a second smaller trumpet to speak through.
  
  For an account of a medium being caught red-handed see: Tony Youens’ article.

Apportation:

• Claim.
  
  The spirits can make items materialise during the séance ranging from semi-precious stones to peoples’ personal belongings that they may have lost at some other time.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Simple apports are just placed there by the medium in the dark. The items are usually worthless and are given as souvenirs to the sitters. Where missing personal items are apported back to their owners, it is a case of the mediums, or their helpers, actually stealing or pick-pocketing these items from their owners and miraculously returning them to their owners via the spirits. This occurrence is more likely to happen where people attend the same places regularly.

Table tipping and levitation.

• Claim.
  
  Sitters at the table all place their hands on top of the table. The spirits then levitate the table during the séance with everyone’s hands remaining on the top of the table.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  There are several methods of levitating tables, many of which are still used by magicians today so we will not reveal the more sophisticated methods. Simple table manipulations have been performed for a long time. Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918) was a medium who developed a simple method. She used a special lightweight table which was designed so that her foot could be hooked beneath one of the legs. Pressing down with her hands and up with her foot gave her control of the table.
  
  With more advanced trickery large, heavy tables can be made to levitate even with a person sitting on it.

Raps and taps.

• Claim.
  
  The spirits often make noises from small taps to loud bangs.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  The medium and the assistants make the noises. It can be as simple as using a children’s peashooter.

Spirit lights.

• Claim.
  
  Flashes of lights appear near or around the medium, often as the spirits are coming through.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  Wire wool brushed across the terminals of a high-voltage battery will make some strange and spooky looking flashes and sparks.

But the medium was tied to the chair…

• Claim.
  
  At the start of the séance, the medium is often tied to a chair with ropes. This rules out trickery.
  
  
• Explanation:
  
  There are also tricks employed here. The chair may have detachable arms. The ropes may have been tied by an accomplice who leaves enough room for the medium to slip out of and back into the apparent restraint.
  
  Where rooms are set up for the sole purpose of séances, there is often a secret door through which accomplices enter after the lights go out. Many effects can be created by accomplices who do the tricks of black art; often seen as a stage act where people dressed in black in front of a black background go unseen and the effects they create look miraculous.
  
  It is surprising just how quickly magicians can free themselves from ropes that are genuinely tied by other people.

There are other tricks and techniques used in physical mediumship, many of which have been around for a century or more. The tricks are quite mundane when seen in daylight, yet the effect that they produce in darkness can be quite profound.

Although physical mediumship is on the decline today, it is remarkable that many people still believe that spirits are coming through when the mediums are using the same tricks that were exposed by magicians like Houdini over eighty years ago.

We don’t normally take part in these ‘skeptics versus believer’ debates as they usually turn out to be of little value – skeptics often being included simply to provide some token opposition. UKS forum member Richard Sutherland decided that he would, however, represent the skeptics’ side of the debate; and this conversation turned out to quite different to the usual:

The first point of note was that the radio station were not doing the programme simply to promote the psychic. Host Joe Finnegan actually sounded rather sceptical of psychics’ claims himself and did a good job of allowing both sides of the debate to be heard.

The second point of note was the the psychic, who calls herself ‘psychic Anna’ (Anna Brennan), agreed live on air to take the JREF $1,000,000 paranormal challenge.

Listen to the broadcast here:

UKS Media: listen to the skeptic vs the psychic programme (MP3)

Despite the usual insults and personal attacks by the psychic (“you’re negative”, “you’re cold”, “I’d like to know what happened to you as a child to make you this way”, “I feel sorry for people who can’t open up to possibilities”, etc.), Richard did a superb job of getting information pertaining to the debate over and did a sterling job in representing skeptics and skepticism.

The main purpose of this commentary, however, is to leave a permanent record of ‘psychic Anna’ (Anna Brennan) agreeing to taking the JREF $1,000,000 challenge live on air.

It is extremely unlikely that she will actually go through with this and if she’s pressed on the issue will undoubtedly come out with the old and tired excuses – but we do have a record of her agreeing to it.

Chillzero © 2007

“What goes around, comes around.”

I looked at the man telling me this – a phrase he had used often before, and noticed a change in his eyes as he spoke. The tone of his voice was altered subtly as well. At the time I was unable to place the change, or the significance, but years later I see that this was when I lost my support network of new-age healers; people I called friends.

All because of karma.

Generally, karma is:

When I was first introduced to the concept, it sounded logical to me. It is often perceived as a kind of cosmic tally system, so it was also reassuring to be told that if I choose to do the right things, I would be cosmically rewarded, whereas those who did wrong would be punished at some stage – whether in this life or the next. I didn’t see the flip-side of this at the time: those people who I saw suffering for no apparent reason must be receiving karmic punishment. By extension, they therefore deserve whatever is happening to them. Either that or they have a massive reward coming in the next life.

Some believers in karma; people like self-professed psychic Sylvia Browne, for example, believe that

This kind of belief system is all well and good when things in your life aren’t too terrible, and will see you through some of the problems you may encounter in your life. Spiritual and new-age communities pride themselves on how they pull together to assist each other and heal each other through difficulties. When a bad thing happens; when you become a victim (whether of circumstance or illness)

This can be tolerated for some experiences, and to a point, but what I want to write about here is the other side of karma. I want to discuss the side that you find yourself on when ‘healers’ believe that the only person to blame for your illness, or your tragedy, is you.

Years ago I had one of those periods in my life that many people have to live through, when it seemed as if nothing would go right. Every week brought a new problem to deal with, and nothing seemed to get any easier as time passed. There were car accidents, illnesses, family funerals, exams, job changes, marriage breakdown … a long list of events that added stress and little happened to alleviate that stress. Looking back, I still think I handled it bravely. Work colleagues often commented on my ability to joke and smile through it all, and to just get on with life. My family and friends, however, eventually took a lot of it on the chin with me. At first I joked with them also, but in later conversations I began to break the veneer of strength and tell them how I felt I couldn’t cope any more, that the next thing to happen might just finish me off. When I say ‘later’, I mean after well over a year of these kinds of problems – not a few weeks.

My family were supportive, and always listened while I explained the latest drama, and how I felt about it all. My GP wanted to treat me for depression, which was another stressful issue – opposed as I was to taking drugs of any kind. My friends helped as best they could. They gave me massages, they listened, they recommended herbal teas or aromatherapy oils, and the ones who owned new-age retail and therapy businesses counseled me through the stress. At first they supported me – telling me that the attitude I had was good, and my positive approach would see me through. I fought off the ‘victim mentality’ for a long, long time. When I felt out of control they reminded me, that ‘everything happens for a reason’ and that I had lessons to learn from my experiences. They encouraged me to look on this all as a positive period in my life, that my soul would be taking huge strides in its karmic development. They held meditations to give me strength to get through it, and added me to various remote healing sessions as well. I felt welcomed, and was regularly encouraged to open my heart and discuss how I was feeling. This was despite the fact I often apologized for only ever meeting them with more bad news. (I should probably add that I was not a passive ‘patient’. I was a massage and reflexology therapist myself at the time. I returned healing with healing, through both therapy and meditation).

I occasionally joked that I must have done something really terrible in a past life to deserve all these problems in this one. At some point that joke became more like a statement of fact to this group of friends. I sincerely believed that I was a casualty of fate, and that I was somehow making the wrong choices to follow my path. I thought that when I took avoiding action for one thing, the fact that something bad happened afterwards indicated that I should have just ‘gone with the flow’ in the first place, and accepted what was bound to happen one way or another. When I became ill, I agreed with my friends who followed the philosophy that:

The intention behind all my treatments and therapy from my friends was designed to

I stepped up efforts on everything that I felt was positive in my life – gave more healing, did more meditations, changed my diet to exclude meat, cut out as many ‘selfish treats’ as I could (chocolate, me-time, etc). After all:

However, time went on, more problems occurred, and my stress levels increased. Nothing seemed to be getting any better. I got fewer offers of assistance and healing, and realized that I was wearing myself out by giving more than I was getting. My treatments on others became less effective as I became more worn out, depressed and withdrawn. When my family told me to hang in there; that it couldn’t get any worse I pointed out that I had given up saying this because to me it seemed to invite more disaster. They said it would all get better in time, and I could only ask ‘when?’. I turned to my friends to ask what they thought I could be doing wrong; why couldn’t I make my life better. The response was along the lines of:

I told them that I didn’t understand – of course I was allowing it: I welcomed it: I truly wanted it. Why on earth would I want things to stay as bad as they were? Some friends told me that subconsciously I must be gaining more from the attention and help that the various traumas brought me than I would from having nothing to worry about. I reminded them that most things were outside my control – accidents caused by the other driver; breakdowns in equipment I had no access to; illnesses; etc. Some responded that I had written my fate, and shouldn’t fight against it. The others still insisted I was subconsciously manipulating my life to be as difficult as possible – either for the education of my soul, or for the attention it could bring me. The conversation I mention at the start of this article was the last I had with that particular ‘friend’. I understood long before this that people can tire of constantly hearing about problems, and was usually very apologetic about having only bad news when asked about how I was getting on. I tried but struggled to find positive things with which to balance conversations. I was very self-conscious about leaning on my friends. I don’t think that these people distanced themselves because they became bored of hearing my problems – they would have stopped listening much earlier if that was the case. Indeed, they told me not to apologise, reminding me that they only had to listen to my problems – I had to live with them. Also, as I mentioned, there was a two-way flow of friendship and healing. I was not just a ‘taker’.

I attended many group meditations, and healing circles, and heard how other people were discussed. After a point it became clear that when things did not improve for a person, then the healers had to start a process by which they could divert blame from themselves. Those of us who accepted standard medical help – such as when I finally agreed with my GP to use anti-depressants – were vilified as having turned our backs on natural healing, and having no faith in the process or the healer. Many of us – all those who had longer term issues – were dismissed as not being open enough to accept the healing. We were too negative, and were inviting black forces into our lives. There was agreement that we were indeed ‘victims’ – but victims of our own negativity; not of any health or circumstantial situations.

I found an essay recently that clearly identifies this attitude:
It is called “Why Most People Don’t Really Want To Heal“, by Kevin B. Burk. This essay is a good example of the kind of thinking I am trying to explain here. For example:

A remote reiki healer that I have quoted a few times here claims that: ”

This kind of comment may at best be mildly useful to some people by encouraging them to take a more positive outlook, but I feel it is limited and arrogant in the assumptions made. It assumes that the person needing healing is not fully participating, and introduces an additional burden – the burden of guilt; because you are wasting the healer’s time by not responding appropriately, regardless of anything you do to try and improve your situation. I consider this attitude abusive.

I have several concerns over the issues I have raised here. Firstly is the mental abuse to those people most in need of help. To suggest that a person in trouble or ill health is contributing to their own demise is appalling and negligent to their emotional needs. All it does is absolve the healer of any involvement in the problem. Next is the issue of qualification. Regardless of how many courses these healers may have taken in the new-age environment, I have yet to meet any that are medically qualified to deal with these situations. They are not psychologists, and so have no knowledge of the damage that can be caused by what they tell their clients. They are not trained physicians, and so should never denigrate the use of drugs in favour of ‘alternative’ therapies. They are not speaking from a position of authority when they tell you that cancer is caused by nothing other than stress and negativity, no matter how confident they are in their assertions.

I overcame my circumstantial difficulties when at some point things just became easier – as my family had suggested they would. My health problems were finally resolved through conventional medical intervention; all without the primary requirement of faith. I am not saying it has all been easy since – life is rarely straightforward. However, gaining an acceptance that I don’t control or own every aspect of every thing in my life has made each problem easier to deal with. When you are in crisis, how can your situation be made any easier by subscribing to a healer who requires that you understand and accept their belief system, as a pre-requisite to completely accepting their ability? Why should any healing system require your unquestioning belief in it before it can work? It is no surprise that a person in crisis is unlikely to be in a place that’s 100% positive, so therefore it is ridiculous that any healing system would deny you relief based on the fact that you are, quite legitimately, disturbed by that very situation. Why should anyone even suggest that you are rejecting the very help you need?

I hope that no-one else has to undergo the crisis of faith I battled with, on top of handling the most difficult situations I had ever faced in my life. It was possibly more harmful to me than the events and illnesses themselves to have to confront the fact that faith in these things was not enough, and worse – it was not working. I relied on my faith to carry me through each crisis, but my faith was also telling me that each crisis was of my own creation. That was very dangerous to my mental health and held me back from taking the appropriate practical actions to resolve the situations for far too long.

If you are suffering, and are having a similar crisis of faith, I hope that my story helps you to consider taking a different approach to your situation. Asking questions should never be considered a negative approach, because after all if a proponent of a faith system claims that it is positive and helpful, then they should be able to withstand a few queries and be glad to further your understanding – shouldn’t they?

As for anyone telling you that you have purposely invited negative events into your life, remember what many wise people have said: ‘shit happens’.

1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma
2 – http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000019790,00.html?sym=QUE
3 – http://www.freespiritcentre.info/articles/8/92_time_for_healing/
4 – http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant
5 – http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant/takecontrolofyourlife.htm
6 – http://www.zenyoga.org/spiritual_healing.html
7 – http://www.freewebs.com/holistictherapyconsultant/whatthebleepdoweknow.htm

We saw many interventions and predictions about this case from many psychics last year and two things stand out: none of them came up with a story that matched any other psychic’s (wouldn’t they all be the same if their ability was real?); and none of them came up with anything that was of the least bit of use.

As usual, they’re simply relying on the police to solve the case and when details come to light the psychics will cherry-pick any details that can be retrofitted and shoehorned to anything they said and start claiming that they helped the police, or more likely in a long case like this that the police should have listened to them. That’s how this game works: psychics offer nothing at all that’s useful to a case but they cash in on the work of others, for example the police, after they have done their job.

If that isn’t bad enough, we now have another low. The TV show Haunting Reality is one of those where a team of ‘psychic investigators’ (all self-titled: psychic profiler Carla Baron, medium John J. Oliver and paranormal investigator Patrick Burns) look at unsolved crimes and provide their ‘insights’ into the case – of course, nothing is ever solved.

Recently they did an ‘investigation’ into the Madeleine McCann case. They made a few specific predictions, reported in the Daily Express, so it is worth recording them here so they can be evaluated should the case ever be solved.

The most notable prediction they came up with was a picture of the abductor:

Drawing of the alleged abductor

“The drawing is of a man aged between 36 and 42 with thick dark brown or black hair and stubble. It has now been handed over to police in Portugal.”

Although they have provided a picture of the alleged abductor, photos like this are really only of use in retrofitting – they will claim success as long as there’s a slight resemblance between the abductor and the picture. A quick example of how this can be done is shown here:

This is a psychic’s drawing of a suspect matched to the real person:

It looks reasonably accurate; however, here’s an alternative view:

They’re nothing like each other in reality. There is no way that the real person could have ever been identified using the psychic’s drawing, but with a bit of careful alignment, the two pictures can be made to look reasonably similar.

The visual aspect of the alleged abductor’s photo makes it seem quite powerful as evidence; however, its use will only be for retrospective validation should the abductor ever be caught, and should he bear some resemblance to the photo – all assuming the abductor was male, of course!

They also came out with a couple of specifics and much of the usual vague and meaningless information that is of no use other than to be retrofitted after the case is solved:

• the man has a pronounced accent and looks and sounds Middle East­ern, possibly Egyptian;
• [he] drives a mid-sized dark silver car with a parking permit or some other identifying sticker inside the windscreen on the driver’s side;
• He may have been wearing a blue, button-up shirt and working as a transient labourer close to the apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve where Madeleine was staying with her family before vanishing on May 3;
• the man is known as Steve or Stav;
• [he] took the child to a summer rental apartment in the nearby village of Lagos;
• she [Madeleine] was murdered there by being smothered by a pillow several days after her abduction because the man feared he would be caught;
• Ms Baron believes the man then bundled her into the boot of his car and drove to a remote area, close to a landfill and man-made dam, where he buried her.

The only particularly specific prediction was that the man’s name will be Steve or Stav. Again, this can only be checked, as always with psychic predictions, after the police have solved the case.

The rest is even more speculative:

Of particular interest is the information that was withheld from us but passed on to the police:

“Executives at Tru TV, part of media tycoon Ted Turner’s CNN network, which makes the Haunting Evidence programme, passed the apartment address to police but withheld it from transmission.”

and

“Ms Baron believes the man then bundled her into the boot of his car and drove to a remote area, close to a landfill and man-made dam, where he buried her. This location has also been passed to police.”

It has already been a good while since this ‘information’ will have been passed on to the police. Whether the police took it seriously or not we won’t know; but there certainly haven’t been any headlines stating that Madeleine has been found or that any new developments have occurred – and this is probably the best indication as to the worth of the psychics’ information.

Sadly this case remains unsolved and will probably remain so, despite the input from many psychics. That, in itself, should be a good indication that psychics can offer absolutely nothing of use to such cases.

It is only when cases like this one are solved that the input from psychics can be evaluated; and their ‘information’ is never anything more than cherry-picked and retrofitted trivia.

Hopefully we will be able to evaluate this information (and that of other psychic predators) one day.

Chillzero © 2006

Catherine (Chillzero) writes from the perspective of scepticism, with an established background of belief in the paranormal. Having examined how psychics arrive at their predictions – from both sides of the fence – Catherine reveals here how they perform. It may be worth highlighting here that any psychic who appears on the media is granted permission to do so only under the laws that govern entertainment, and so the word perform is most appropriate.

I used to believe I had psychic abilities. I gave tarot readings, I consulted my spirit guide, and believed in the spirit of nature as being a force in all things. I would not consider the old me to be a con artist – I was not intentionally deceiving people. I honestly believed I was given the ability to interpret signs, and that I was using it for good. So I believed I was genuine, as did plenty of other people. I could read the traffic around me uncannily well, knowing when a driver was about to turn suddenly, or not turn where they signalled to. I was good at reading tarot cards and at helping people come to decisions about events in their lives. I would spook people by telling them who was calling when the phone rang, or that someone we were waiting for had just come into the bar although my back was turned to the door – that sort of thing.

However, even as I did all this, I constantly came up with questions about what I was doing, and how I managed to do it. Why could I only get instinctive flashes about things? Why could I not use this ‘power’ when I concentrated hard on something important? What about the times I was wrong (although they were freakishly few – even looking back as a hardened sceptic) – what happened then?The new-age people I was involved with had no tolerance for such curiosity. They felt I should just accept my gift unquestioningly, and use it to the best extent I could. But I was never satisfied with this. Finally, guided by some sceptics, I tested myself on what external information I could possibly have noticed, and realised that I am more of an expert on body language, or verbal subtleties than most. I soon realised that I was very good at picking up subliminal signals from people, or noticing things in the distance. In traffic I could see reflections in streetside windows, or a change in the lights on the ground of the road where a car was approaching unseen. Phone calls were often a matter of logical assumption and deduction – it was all a matter of fast critical/ logical thinking. With doing readings I realised I was getting a lot more information about a person’s situation from them or their friends – often before we even met to read. I wasn’t asking for it or actively seeking it out, but I picked up on things that were said, or more – the way they were said. I filed information away and didn’t even fully realize that this mental library was where I was drawing information from when I spoke to them later. As I read tarot I could discern from the other person’s reactions whether I was on track or completely wrong, and was horrified to realize during one reading that I had adjusted what I told them accordingly. This realization rocked my self perception completely, and I felt unable to continue the deception. Continuing on this path would have made me a con-artist, without question.

The more I investigated, the less paranormal my abilities seemed to become. I revisited old acquaintances from the new-age shops and conventions I used to frequent and was disappointed to find that I could apply the same reasoning to what they did. I could reasonably determine what they would tell others, and where they had identified that information. Some of my associates were of the sincere belief that they had genuine powers, and that they worked for the powers of good. Some others, however, became obvious to me as frauds, who knew that they were able to read and manipulate people and situations to their own benefit or profit. This benefit is not necessarily monetary; it could come in the form of barter, time, advertising (even just by word of mouth) or gifts. One woman in particular was very good at convincing people that she wished to have no reward, no publicity, and so on, and yet the way she did this gained their further confidence and admiration, and ensured that they raved about her to just about everyone they knew. From conversations I had with her, I know this was a deliberate and very effective ploy.

Consider this: if a psychic contacts you about your missing family member, then they are obviously aware of your story, and therefore your control over this situation is non-existent. They may have heard radio appeals for information, or seen the news bulletins. They may have read the newspapers that covered your plight. They may even have actively researched all of these. They may contact you via a family member or friend. The point is that they already know something, and even if they tell you that they have only been made aware of the smallest bit of information about you – why would you believe a stranger? How can you know how much they have actually managed to learn, or whether they have contacts within the police? If they come to you through a close associate, then no matter how well intentioned your friend/relative may be, you can’t know how much information they may have passed on – even unintentionally and unwittingly. Even if this psychic genuinely believes in their ability, you can never be certain that they haven’t been exposed to more information than perhaps even they realize.

Then there is the information they provide. There is no documented evidence that any psychic has ever provided information that led directly and accurately to a missing person. There are plenty of stories of psychic leading police to the general areas where bodies have been found, stories of psychics determining the final fates of people, or identifying a vague description of a perpetrator. These stories are not substantiated by evidence that could confirm that psychics are any more accurate than a non-psychic making an educated guess. And much of this information cannot be verified because of the incredibly high percentage of unsolved cases.

Finally, there is the approach that psychics take. At first, most psychics will be incredibly friendly and open. They need to do this to build a semblance of trust between themselves and you – they need you to relax, and to feel that you can open up to them. That way you will give out more information and signals than you realize. I know this from experience, although I never realized at the time how manipulative the reading situation could be. I believed I was merely trying to set the other person at ease, but there is definitely a little more to it. Next, psychics tend to be unshakably confident that they are right, or must at least be deferred to. I have never yet seen a self proclaimed psychic defer to anyone else’s knowledge on any subject, or admit they were wrong. This was where my problems with my abilities began to shake a little; I knew I wasn’t an expert in everything, and was reluctant to insist upon my answers in the face of someone who could possibly know better. A person’s confidence in a statement they put forward can make it very difficult for you to consider it critically. It can be frustrating to attempt to discuss it, and that kind of discussion is less likely to happen between you and a psychic when you are already in an altered state of reality; whether from grief, confusion, lack of sleep, or even years later, lack of closure; and desperate for information.

You may like to believe that people in general are not that manipulative, and ask why should psychics be singled out for such criticism? My answer is this: find your local area’s most successful salesperson – an estate agent, a car salesman, or even a higher priced clothes retailer for example. Go and observe them selling items. Listen to what they say about their products. Watch how they read signals from their clients, and how they adjust their approach to match different types of client, determined by the client’s dress, speech, confidence, or the car they arrived in. See for yourself how much information can be gleaned about a person and their current situation – without the benefit of press coverage. Now think, why should psychics be any different?

You will be approached with an offer of help. The insinuation will be that you cannot possibly turn this away, because it is the closest thing to walking away from your loved one when you see them wave a hand for you to find them. This is nothing more than manipulation of your emotions. You should feel no guilt for ignoring these ‘leads’ that do not arise from any established evidential route. They may claim that they cannot rest, that they cannot quiet the voices, until they give you the information. This makes a direct connection to your own sleepless nights and lack of closure. It is a play on your grief that should not be tolerated.

I never lost a family member, but I had several continuous years of incredible misfortune, and I can personally vouch for the negative side of believing in psychic ability. I got plenty of help initially, but this waned as my misfortunes just continued and increased. I suffered for years as my new-age associates explained karma to me: everything happens for a reason/ everything you do comes back to you/ things only happen to you that you deserve to experience. In other words, when bad things happen to you, you personally did something to deserve it – maybe not even in this lifetime. All events are lessons to learn, and if things don’t get better, then you are clearly failing to learn the correct lesson. I consider this attitude highly abusive, and it cost me many years of personal growth and comfort when I was made to believe that basically I deserved everything I got and that I wasn’t doing the right things to make things go right again. My mental health suffered dramatically as a result, because it was frustrating and depressing in the extreme to experience what I was going through, let alone to be made to feel that it was all my own fault anyway. I am here now to tell you that this is wrong. It is not your fault that this terrible thing has happened. You are not being punished for past life sins, and nor is your loved one. You have no cause for guilt if you turn a psychic’s offer of ‘help’ away.

If a psychic contacts you to offer their help, hand them a load of posters to distribute, or bring them on a land search if you are still at that stage. Make their help be productive to you, and consider why they would not join in this kind of effort if they really ‘felt’ your plight as they claim to. They may ask you to weigh up what they have to gain against what you have to lose, for a simple conversation. Well, just think about this for a moment. They usually gain publicity, even if they do not perform well. They will always have apologisers to justify whatever they may get wrong. Even if they are completely wrong they can still gain sympathy with believers because at least they did their duty to try to help. They also step into your life for a while. They gain involvement in your personal trauma, and become involved in a drama outside their own lives. What do you lose? You lose time. You spend energy that you need for yourself and those that are still around you. You get distracted from your control of your situation; having to incorporate new opinions and ideas into the steep learning curve that you are already having to cope with. You may get ideas for new areas to pursue – this may even led the police in new directions. Those directions could, unfortunately distract effort away from the correct areas for concern.

There are no genuine mediums. There are people with genuine intentions, but not psychic powers. There are people who could be helpful if you were discussing difficult choices you needed to make, but often your friends can do that for you without the mumbo jumbo. It’s a matter of reading, yes, but not reading cards, or signs, or what spirits show you – it’s a matter of reading the environment and the person before them. And then there are the con artists who read the newspapers, audience listings, area information, web sites, etc to glean what they need – as well as reading the people around them. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to distinguish between them. Your focus should remain on your loved ones, and not on placating a snubbed psychic, or inviting more strangers into your very personal situation.

THE MURDER DETECTIVES AND THE MEDIUM: A TRUE STORY.

Emma-Louise Rhodes © 2008. (See: www.emmalouiserhodes.com)

Although police forces across Britain generally deny using psychic mediums, this incident illustrates the motivation behind such rare involvement (from a police point of view), as well as with the obvious outcome.

Every Possible Avenue Of Inquiry

On March 13, 1980, at around 8:50 pm, Detective Constable Norman Robertson, along with an unnamed Detective Sergeant, had attended a séance in a darkened room with a trance medium in an attempt to shed some light on the murder.

Whilst giving evidence regarding the case, now retired Norman Robertson claimed that:

(consulting the medium) showed Tayside Police’s desire to spread into every possible avenue of inquiry. It was not one which I thought when I went to it I was particularly hopeful of a conclusion (sic), but it was something I was involved in.

When asked whose idea it had been to consult the medium, Robertson answered that he could not remember whether it was the officer in charge of the investigation or someone else. He described the séance by stating that that they had held hands around a table and the medium had gone into a trance. Prompted further by Mark Stewart QC, the retired detective added:

She then gave us information which I doubted seriously from the outset. It did not go very well… It was never a serious line of inquiry. It would not be thought of as leading Tayside Police to a suspect or the accused in this case …. I am confident, and I am confident my colleague thought this was not a worthwhile line of inquiry.

Robertson stated that the medium had given details regarding the location of a vehicle, but that none of the information passed on at the séance from the medium’s ‘spirit guide’ had been of any use to police. He stated that one of the reasons they had visited the medium was because witnesses might find ways such as that to give information to the police, and so for that reason it had to be tested.

However, Robertson dismissed the efforts as a ‘charade’ which did not last long. The medium, he stated, was unable to continue and the police left the séance having gained no valuable information at all.

A Shining Example

The defense council had, earlier in the trial, accused Tayside police of ‘extremely sloppy methods’ and the declaration, almost out of the blue, that they had consulted a medium in the hope of leading them to Elizabeth McCabe’s murderer was a very obvious tool in demonstrating this conviction.

Although many British psychics claim to have helped the police in their investigations, there is very little evidence to back this up. Medium Sharon Neill states that the police generally deny any psychic contribution that may help them in their inquiries, asserting:

Unfortunately, the police forces in the UK won’t admit that they use psychics to help them solve crimes.

In their paper Rhetoric in ‘Psychic Detection’ Ciaron O’Keefe and Laurence Alison are slightly more objective in their study of the subject, stating that:

In high profile murder and rape cases there is a pressure on the police to follow up any leads, however seemingly obscure. Any information volunteered to the police has to be recorded …. Of the devices examined, many are associated with methods employed in cold reading—a related set of techniques known to convey convincingness about advice/opinions, though there is no substantive evidence within the account. Whether these processes relate to self or other deception is uncertain, though clarification of their existence and structure may go some way to exploring the distortions that they may present to an enquiry.

Interestingly, Tayside Police were among those who did not reply to Eddie Silence’s letter and subsequent study in 2006, inquiring whether their police force had ever, or would ever consider, using a psychic medium to aid them in their investigations.(1.) However, the fact that the force did, twenty-six years previously, use a trance medium to assist them in a murder inquiry, demonstrates an interesting insight into the desperate need to find evidence when dealing with such serious and horrendous crimes.

Unfortunately for the likes of mediums such as Sharon Neill who are keen to praise the unsung ‘psychic detectives’ who have allegedly helped police solve numerous investigations, the case of Elizabeth McCabe provides a shining example of what happens when detectives decide to consult a psychic medium. The very fact that retired Detective Constable Robertson referred to the episode as a ‘charade’ exemplifies the nature of the ‘medium as detective’ along with the waste of police time spent on following up such leads.

The police and psychics

BBC News, ‘Woods Murder Police ‘Held Séance’’

Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Alison L. and O’Keefe, C., ‘Rhetoric in ‘Psychic Detection’’, Vol. 64, 1, No. 858.

Neill, Sharon, Second Sight, Orion, 2007.

The Scotsman, ‘Murder Police ‘Held Séance’ With Medium’, John Robertson (8 November, 2007).