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| The former Spiritualist Church, London |
This came about due to us both feeling it was a little unfair to criticise (or praise) other parties without at first obtaining first-hand experience of them and the services they offered and how they operated. I guess we considered this unethical if you like.
An area we explored within our programme was platform mediums, those operating at spiritualist churches and even those present at psychic fairs and events. In this aspect, we were particularly keen to evaluate the alleged mediums and, learn any cold reading techniques they may possibly employ.
And so it came to pass, one cold, wet, winter evening, we found ourselves driving out to a local spiritualist Church Laura knew, where a couple of platform mediums were advertised as performing that evening.
Arriving at the service
Parking the vehicle within walking distance of the venue, we were careful to exit the car and enter the hall separately. It was possible Laura may have been familiar to some of the Church members and this way, we felt, made it more difficult for anyone to know Laura and I were together or connected in any particular way, even those who may have recognised her.
Also, this way, in the event of Laura or I calling out a medium publicly during the evening, it would allow the other to remain in the audience and continue observing the evenings’ remaining performances.
I walked into the hall and saw the seating was organised into rows. Spotting Laura, who had entered the hall before me, to my left, I selected a seat way over to the right of the stage and made my way over to it, with Laura approximately 20 seats away in another block.
Enter Stage Left
Very shortly, the first medium made their appearance. Entering the stage, he wasted no time identifying people in the audience to provide a reading to and, as we expected, using basic cold reading techniques to coax information, often at a subconscious level, from the audience to dutifully provide them with their seemingly desired reading.
What particularly struck me was the blatant manner in which the medium asked leading questions (innocently of course) without raising any suspicions amongst the gathered, adoring audience, who seemed more focused upon being the one receiving a message at the expense of anything else.
This carried on for around twenty minutes, before the session wound down and an intermission announced to allow for refreshments and the gathered audience to discuss the proceedings so far with each other.
Laura and I didn’t break cover during the break, maintaining our distance and, gave no acknowledgement of each other if our paths crossed during this period.
Second round, Medium number two
I watched silently as she did the same pacing up and down, evaluating the audience, as I’d observed with the first medium earlier. Eventually, she slowed down and approached Laura and began to pass on the information she was being given from the other side.
Laura sat quietly, waiting for the lady to finish her message. Having considered ‘the message’ she advised the medium she did not recognise anything from what she’d been given and politely told her that she could not therefore accept. Clearly disappointed, the medium moved on and went back to pacing up and down at the front of the stage.
She soon approached a couple more audience members and gave them messages, which were generally accepted. However, this lady was different from the previous medium and neither Laura or I, discussing later, observed any heavy cold reading techniques – it was simply pace, select an audience member, tell them something, then move on.
As I sat there quietly, hoping the evenings’ events would soon draw to a close, to my absolute horror, the medium walked to where I was sitting and stopped immediately in front of me, staring right at me.
In all the time Laura and I had spent observing various mediums over the previous 18 months, no one had ever approached me to give me a reading, up until this point.
The moment of truth
After a few seconds pause, the medium let me know she had a gentleman for me, mature, tousled hair, checked flannel shirt, which he kept placing and replacing a pair of glasses in the breast pocket.
She also mentioned a brief case, with no context, but it would mean something to me and, ‘he liked to play the piano’.
I paused before asking her how she knew this gentleman liked to play a piano? It was the only question I could think of at the time...... please don’t judge me.
The medium replied it was because he appeared to her playing a piano, accompanied by a little whitish dog, a Jack Russell, which she accompanied by gestures of playing a piano flamboyantly and, the height of the dog as she told me.
She told me ‘he’ had no message for me unfortunately and wouldn’t give his name and, ‘he’ was just appearing to me because he could do so, ‘just for the hell of it’, no other reason, which the medium was quite firm upon.
Without naming names or, giving clues to who this person was, I had to admit could identify this person, who had passed a couple of years earlier. The information she passed was all accurate, including his character, which she had down to a tee.
The gentleman could play a piano to a very high standard, had performed in concert and was a church organist until he passed, in spite of him having no real religious beliefs, it was one of his main passions and his local pub had even installed a piano for him, to provide him an opportunity to play when there.
He also had a small, mainly white dog, whom he doted upon and, the information he appeared just because he could, for the hell of it, summed up his character perfectly.
Confirming I could ‘accept’ the message, the medium quietly said thank you and moved on, leaving me very perplexed, as you can probably imagine.
What I mention to the medium was something that was actually the most poignant - the brief case.
A few days after he had died, his daughter approached me and told me that ‘he’ would have wanted me to have it, before passing it to me.
I still possess this brief case almost 20 years later, although I’ve never used it.
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| The brief case, which I still possess |
A period of mature reflection
Away from the venue, Laura and I had time to reflect on our respective experiences that night.
Whilst the first medium, whilst we were disappointed cold reading techniques were clearly deployed, in some ways it was what we were expecting. However, it was concerning the second medium the debate got more interesting.
The medium came across as passive, less aggressive than the earlier medium. Also, it was noticeable she never asked any questions, simply notifying who the message was for and then proceeding to deliver the message.
Whilst we couldn't verify the accuracy of any message to the others in the audience she had a message for, for Laura herself, she was unable to take her message but was keen to point out no one had ever been able to provide her with a reading, some even going as far to suggest she was 'blocking' them from giving a message or reading.
However, for myself, it would be absolutely churlish to deny the information I was given, especially as I had physical evidence of it at home.
I could clearly match all the information and the personality of an individual I knew well and, had had passed in recent years.
In the circumstances, I had to accept it was that person or, a very lucky guess at a series of information that could be related to a person I knew who had passed in recent years.
So, after some reflection, we feel that whilst there are clearly many cold reading techniques being used by platform mediums to provide readings, there are clearly some who do genuinely possess some form of mediumistic skills. Therefore (and we say this with caution, the whole phenomena of platform mediumship should only be evaluated upon a case by case basis.
Why are things involving the paranormal never straightforward?
