Psychics — Are They Full of Shit?

The first psychic I visited was at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain. A grand title and a grander location, given that they were headquartered in London’s Belgrave Square, which is chock-full of minor royalty and foreign embassies. It was 1969, I was 18, and I went there with a friend whose father had just died and, on a whim, decided to have my own reading. It was my friend’s third consultation, and she and her medium were on a roll. I had high hopes going in but, where she came out thrilled and amazed, I came out confused and disappointed.

In my memory I see myself in a tiny office-space under the stairs — so hot it had me thinking of the sweatbox from ‘The Bridge On the River Kwai’ — with an elderly woman trying to pluck something from the ether to justify her fee. I was a teenager, and everyone I cared about was still alive, but I thought she might have a tall, dark stranger lined up for me or, at a pinch, the family pets. However, neither materialized and, in desperation, she asked me exactly why I was there. I said I’d recently read an Agatha Christie novel where people used a Ouija Board to speak to the dead and, with a mutual sigh of relief, we spent what was left of our time discussing murder mysteries.

On the Tube ride home, my bereaved friend was all outrage on my behalf. Not that she knew anything about the woman I’d seen, but her guy was definitely the real deal. And to prove it she gifted me a session with him for my birthday, which, I’m sad to say, was another crash and burn. He was a roly-poly little fat man who prompted, prodded, and made wild guesses based on my 1960’s Dolly Bird appearance, but I stuck to Yes and No answers and he got no further than his colleague had.

As cover for this, he suggested that I was a bad subject; someone the dearly departed had no interest in communicating with. He said I hadn’t met him halfway, and wasn’t an open person. I was hurt and embarrassed, but also angry. I was hungry for a spiritual life, and eager to believe in miracles yet, even as a teenager I knew that this was an area ripe for charlatans, and it wasn’t my job to feed him cues or do his tricks for him.

8 years later, however I was temping at an embassy in Belgrave Square and every day had to pass the building on my way to and from the Tube station. By then there’d been a few deaths in the family so, of course, I succumbed and booked an appointment, which not only went well, but came with a hint of drama.

For when I arrived, I waited in line behind a middle-aged couple, unremarkable except for the wife’s tight perm, which was so unflattering I felt sorry for her. Apparently, they’d traveled from Edinburgh for the reading, had abandoned it almost immediately, and were now in a heated exchange with the receptionist on comments the medium had made on the woman’s hair-do.

Having done my own double take, I was imagining some version of ‘Jesus! What the hell did you do to your hair? But no. The medium had seen them to their seats, then opened with a compliment from their dead son. ‘You look lovely, Mum!’ But, unfortunately for him, the kid had hated his mother’s perms. One insult after another whenever she had it done and, on the train from Scotland, she’d actually said to her husband — ‘If he comes through, the first thing he’ll do is have a go at me about my hair’.

The receptionist suggested that her colleague might’ve been reluctant to relay an insult and had instead turned it into a compliment, and I butted into the conversation to agree. But they were having none of it. They’d been up and down the country visiting psychics, and knew the ropes. If their son had survived death there’d be no tiptoeing around the perm, and any clairvoyant worth their salt would’ve delivered the message as is. Impressed by their argument, I went into my appointment even more determined not to be hoodwinked.

This time they put me with a middle-aged lady, warm, friendly and kind, who by-passed the recently-departed and went straight to work on me, and what made me tick. I was there for an hour, shellshocked by her insider knowledge, and gratified by the validation. In retrospect, I got the standard Jungian empath spiel, and I would’ve dismissed the whole thing as a very enjoyable therapy session had she not produced a lone nugget of concrete information. For, right as I was leaving, almost as I reached the door, she began speaking of an illegitimate child my mother had before the Second World War.

This was not possible and I told her so. In fact, it was so not possible I told my mother, and we had a good laugh about it. And yet, the following October at a family funeral, one of the busy-body aunts inadvertently confirmed it. As part of a larger story, she used this pre-war pregnancy to get a fix on the date. My mother had a common name and I still might’ve missed it, had not half the room immediately started running interference, shepherding me away and murmuring things like ‘Don’t listen to her.’ And ‘She’s a terrible gossip.’ But here was partial proof of what I’d been looking for, and over the next couple of years I dropped in several times on Joe Benjamin’s public meetings in Kentish Town, hoping for more word on this lost child.

Joe called himself God’s Showman and prided himself on being entertaining, which he was. A small man with a giant ego, he was adept at cold reading, and generalities, no matter how trivial — ‘You and your husband… you always had a mid-morning cuppa, right? With a nice Rich Tea biscuit… or was it a Digestive? And whose Mum loved her TV? Coronation Street? Emmerdale? Yes! You, sir!’. The guy in the sailor’s uniform ‘had traveled a lot’, the black person came from ‘a hot country’. And he couldn’t pin down a full name. It was all initials, with an ‘A’, morphing into an ‘E’ and then an ‘I,O,U’ until someone in the audience raised a tentative hand. There were evenings I scoffed at their gullibility, others when I was able to go with the flow and enjoy it for what it was — good theater.

Not surprisingly, Joe never showed a jot of interest in me. In fact, I don’t think he ever made eye contact, which was probably just as well. As a younger man, he may have been genuinely psychic but, by the late 1970’s, it was all artifice. And there-in lies the rub because — let’s face it — people with these gifts cannot be on-call 24/7. There will be days they’re on the ball, many when they’re not. However, if you’ve committed yourself to room rent in Belgrave Square or, God forbid, a weekly TV program you will, at some point, have to improvise. Whatever he was up to, we both moved on, and it was 12 years before I visited another medium.

In 1989 I was living on Turnpike Lane in London, an ugly place that even Google dismisses ‘as an important traffic thoroughfare (with) a number of restaurants.’ Sadly, it was the best I could do, having returned to London penniless after 4 months backpacking across Europe. Everything I owned was in storage, and apart from my work clothes and a hairdryer I was making do with what I’d used on my travels. I was again temping, dealing with the long trek in and out of Central London in high heels and business-wear, and re-acclimating to the awful British weather.

On this particular evening it was freezing cold and raining torrentially and, while I waited outside the Tube station for a break in the down pour, I saw a poster in a glass case advertising a psychic meeting that night. I knew in a flash that I was supposed to be there and, after checking my watch, decided I had time to go home, and have something to eat, before the 7.30 start.

However, by 7.00 the down pour had turned into a full-on storm. My wool coat was wet from earlier and my umbrella useless against the winds. I dithered at the door for almost 20 minutes, telling myself the meeting would be cancelled because of the appalling weather. But then I remembered the flash, changed into my hiking rain gear, and set off running.

Far from being cancelled the assembly hall was packed, and I chose a seat close enough to the stage to be noticed. But there were further latecomers and an enormous bodybuilder took the chair in front of me, completely obscuring my view. This really pissed me off. I got up, muttering under my breath, and moved farther back, but had zero interaction with anyone else. I was in a state of hyper-vigilance, expectant and excited, and in no mood for idle chat.

The medium, when he arrived, was reassuring. For the life of me I cannot remember his name. But he was a middle-aged man casually dressed in a jacket, tie and slacks, quiet and calm, with a regional accent I couldn’t identify. He began by setting the rules of engagement: no feedback from us, other than yes or no answers. We were not to help him, prompt him, encourage him or jump in with explanations or questions. ‘Just a simple yes or no, and don’t volunteer anything!’

He then went to work, calling on a woman, who stood up for the reading. I have no idea if that was the norm but, once she stood, everyone he called on did as well. By this time, I was sick with nerves and wishing I’d stayed home, or at least stayed hidden behind the body builder. Nevertheless, I was his fifth subject. He pointed right at me, and even though I’d known he would, I still couldn’t believe it. ‘You!’ he repeated, ‘The young lady in black!’ But I was rooted to my seat, and only got to my feet when my neighbor dug me in the ribs, by which time he was already into his opening remarks.

‘Don’t be deceived by her clothes,’ he said., ‘This is a very colorful person, outgoing and friendly, despite her chronic shyness.’

A nice compliment, I thought. I mean, who doesn’t want to be seen as colorful, outgoing and friendly, and I warmed to him immediately. The chronic shyness? A good guess, based on my reluctance to stand up? And, of course, my clothes were another telltale sign. Everyone else was in a formal winter coat while I was in jeans, boots, a beanie, and my hooded rain slicker; head-to-toe anarchist black, that screamed left-wing feminist, or serious backpacker.

‘Widely traveled,’ he continued.

He’d gone with the backpacker, and I said ‘Yes’.

‘You’ve been all over the world.’

I nodded, wondering if he was listening for the Australian ‘yees’ or the New Zealand ‘yuss’, because I’d bought my hiking gear in Auckland, a dead giveaway if you knew your brand names.

‘America. Europe. Asia. The Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand).

And there it was, a tentative question mark after ‘the Antipodes’. The polite thing to do was to run with that question mark, to admit to living there for several years, but that would be volunteering information, which he’d told us not to do. So, I let it pass.

‘You’re completely self-sufficient.’ I shrugged.

‘And you’re surrounded by books. Bookcases in every room’.

I’m down to my favorites now, but I used to have a few thousand. I wanted to take this as a hit, but I know plenty of people who think they’re surrounded by books when all they have is a small pile on the nightstand.

‘A.lot.of.books!’ he qualified.

I made a rueful face and agreed.

He paused, as if considering.

‘You’re fed up with traveling.’

I laughed and gave him a decisive two thumbs up. I hated London in the rain, but I was physically and mentally exhausted from months on the road.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘They’re telling me you’re going to marry a man who travels for a living, and that your traveling days are definitely not over.’

I didn’t know what to say to that. A romantic prediction was the last thing I was expecting and yet it was, for me, a solid hit. I married a man in the American military, and we were on the move for years. However, my skeptical friends have always dismissed it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, joking that I made it happen, and that I would’ve married a bus driver, if I hadn’t met my husband first. In reality, I had two boyfriends between this reading and meeting my husband, one of whom was an accountant, the other a math teacher. But they have a point.

I mumbled a ‘Thank you’, and we stood in silence for a few seconds. His eyes were lowered, and he held the palm of his hand in a stop sign. Then, with absolutely no lead up, he re-focused on me and said, ‘Your father built ships. I see him in a harness, hanging on the side of a naval ship, welding.’

And there it was! Clear, unambiguous proof. For, our Dad was a welder and boilermaker, who worked in the docks the whole war doing battle-damage repairs. They were bombed every day, sitting it out on the side of the ships, because getting out of the harness was such a hassle. I shared this with the audience, and got the medium a huge round of applause, after which he went on to the next person.

By most people’s standards this was clairvoyance at its best, but the skeptics are right: much of it could still be attributed to cold reading. British women in hiking gear were not the norm back then and the obvious place to pursue that was to a Commonwealth country, which could be detected in Yes and No answers. And if that failed, you opted for the adventure tourism angle. Hence ‘widely traveled’, which rolls naturally into self-sufficiency and even lots of books.

But what he told us about my father defies explanation. Psychic TV shows eavesdrop on the lines outside the studio, and on the audience once they’re seated. Not to mention Internet obituaries, and paying in advance by credit card. But this was 1989, I was new to the neighborhood, I came late, paid in cash at the door, and spoke to no one. And, of all the occupations you could guess for someone, a welder, in a harness, on the side of a ship, is not on anyone’s list.

So, given that I finally had a successful reading, would I recommend you visit a medium? I hate to say it, but no. Joe Benjamin, for all his faults, charged the equivalent of a dollar, but these days some of them charge $1,000 a session, and the majority are fakes. And, let’s be frank, exploiting someone else’s grief is as bottom of the barrel as it gets, and I’m hoping the Devil is reserving a special place in Hell for those folks.

Are there any who are the real deal? In my view, yes. The problem is finding them. When I look back on the lady with the perm at the Spiritualist Association, I think she should be everyone’s role model. Sort the sheep from the goats early in the sitting, and ask for a refund if they’re useless. And, needless to say, be prepared to be disappointed.

On a personal level, I believe in God, and I’m sure that we go on, in some form. I went through a period of wanting to prove that, but I now see no reason why it has to include a third-party. My siblings and I joke that our Mum is making tea for everyone in heaven, and yet we all feel her presence. And my eldest brother, a life-long atheist, started seeing his wife shortly after she died, and was immeasurably comforted.

But our capacity for self-delusion is unlimited, and I force myself to take it all with a grain of salt, and to be 100% logical when examining the evidence. Dabble if you must, but keep a tight lid on your spending, and look for specifics, although even those are accessible if you know your way around the Internet.