If It Wasn't For You Meddling Kids...

*Shakes fist at Great Dane and stupid hippy children wearing exceedingly bright items of clothing*

It was about 3 years ago, when I was going through my ultimate 'THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH' phase when I found myself in the audience of one of Derek Acorah's live shows. For those of you that found themselves living under rocks or in damp cellars about 3 years ago, Derek Acorah called himself a 'spiritualist medium'. Loosely translated, he claimed to have the gifts that enabled him to hear, feel (creepy), smell (ew) and see the spirits of dead people and was able to communicate with them. He has since been proved to be a fraud, but that isn't the point here.

My point here is the suggestibility of a human mind. Back to the show (I need to paint a picture here, settle down kids). For those of you who aren't stupid enough to have paid to go to one of these things, basically, a medium stands on a stage in a room full of people and waits. Then, if they are feeling generous (and just happen to be following around their loved ones everywhere they go) the spirits of the audience's dead friends and relatives give the mediums CLUES as to who they are. These clues are then relayed to the audience, who speak up if it's their relative, and they have a little chat. Of sorts.

I roared with laughter the entire evening due to the stupidity of the whole set up. It's clear to see that the mediums are quite literally stabbing in the dark and relying on some poor old bat sitting in the audience to cry "OMFG that's my dear GEOFF!!" or else they would find themselves standing in silence, performing to crickets and tumbleweeds. Quite literally, some of the clues given were "I have a person here... Of the male sex... Whose name starts with a letter of the alphabet" and almost immediately you could see men and women alike begin to mutter amoungst themselves and actually CONSULT NOTES that they'd brought about their loved ones (yeah, you loved them soooooooooo much, didn't you??? So much so that you knew sod all about them!!!!!). The following conversations that these poor saps then had with their 'loved ones' were so vague and could be applied to anyone - "You're having money issues." was a popular one as well as "I'm happy and at peace."

Even though I was laughing hysterically the entire time, I felt so sorry for these people who genuinely believed that they were talking to their loved ones. They obviously missed them so much that they were willing to try anything to be able to talk to them and could have taken even the slightest hint from the medium and applied it to their relative. It's sad. It's very sad.

On that note, my mother and I are going to a psychic evening tomorrow night. Tee hee hee.