I WAS probably 35 when an aunt told me that my late mother had been a medium with an enormous interest in the spirit world.
The news that Mum, who died in a polio epidemic when I was six years old, sent a shiver up my spine.
I wondered if she might have shuffled off all her psychic baggage along with her mortal coil - and dumped it all on me.
Basically, I was scared and I figured that if I steered clear of it all, just as I have always tried to avoid horror films, then I could live in peace.
There’s nothing I would like more than to hug the Mum I scarcely remember - and if there really is life after death (or should that be debt) maybe I will. But I do not believe that chucking euros at someone who purports to have a hotline to both Heaven and Hell will persuade my Mum or Dad to reveal even the tiniest secret. And certainly not to anyone outside the family.
Until a few months ago, I had an open mind on the psychic phenomenon. Now I believe most ‘mediums’ are gift-of-the-gab merchants who may think they have special powers but are more interested in cashing in on them.
Yes, money certainly plays a part. And in some cases big money.
The much-feted American psychic John Edward (yes, the Jedward of the West) charges 800 dollars for a private consultation. Don’t tell me he’s in it to help people - it’s all big business to him.
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| John Edward charges $800 for a reading |
The guy supposedly builds bridges between the studio audience and their dead loved ones. But his lines of enquiry merely added to my growing reservations about the clairvoyancy business.
I’m certainly not convinced by generalities such as ”Your Dad wants you to know he feels he could have been a better father’’. Just about every Dad on earth could say that.
So when Jedward (that’s him in the two pictures) fired the opening line, ’’I’m getting a ‘D’ or it could be a ‘D A’ at a packed studio audience, he could have roped in any one of those punters. Who doesn’t know a David, for heaven’s sake?
Still, for all his unconvincing patter, at least the American Jedward provides decent entertainment. Like the moment he probed the studio audience, brow furrowed in concentration, and announcd: ”I’m getting the name Stacey. Is there a Stacey here?’’
‘’My name is Samantha,’’ came the instant, irrelevant reply from one overkeen onlooker, her mind seemingly lost in Stace.
I’m not being fair in doubting John Edward’s spiritual talents because I’ve only caught snippets of his show. But I have had my cards read by two ladies here on the Costa Blanca, one of whom is particularly highly-rated.
This very confident and assertive woman spent half an hour turning over Tarot cards and hitting me with vague generalities that revealed nothing meaningful about my past, present or future.
I was waiting to be told something that only my eccentric Dad and I could know - like how he’d put sugar rather than salt on tomatoes.
Or how he would assure me I’d be quids in when he died - only for the Inland Revenue to clean up his entire estate in back taxes when he finally keeled over.
Eat your hearts out, Lester Piggott and Ken Dodd.
To those of you who do believe in mediums, clairvoyants, spiritualists or whatever, I am NOT suggesting you are being conned.
All I am saying is that I am not convinced. Having said that, I am also very nervous about delving too deeply into the subject. And that, I suppose, suggests that I don’t know what I believe.
Hell, I think I’ll leave it till Christmas and nip along with Ebenezer Scrooge for a reading from Marley’s Ghost.
Bah, humbug.
