Efforts to contact the rock and roll dead range from the cheap and cheerful – the Twenty Four Hour Church of Elvis, in Portland, where for 25 cents rolled into a slot machine, the spirit of Elvis will tell your fortune – to the customised tour of Graceland where you can hold hands with your fellow dreamers and attempt a psychic Q/A with the King.
Some websites will also guide you to Oregon if you want to find Jim Morrison living happily as a cowboy, and (admittedly this does stretch the imagination) as a cheerful participant on the rodeo circuit in the Pacific North West.
There’s a blog dedicated to insisting that Kurt Cobain is still with us and living in Cork, Ireland. He was significant by his absence when I flew into Cork Airport last month, but to be fair, it hadn’t entered my mind to scan the car hire office for former members of Nirvana.
This whole business about contacting the dead, whether spirits of rock and roll, or ordinary Joes like you and me – after thousands of years, and thousands of ‘mediums’ making a living out of their self promoted ability to contact those who have died – nobody, ever, in all that time, has ever produced one shred of a sliver of evidence that such contact can actually be made and verified.
It is most convenient for the ‘psychics’ and equally inconvenient for the bereaved or curious that the contact with the deceased always seems to be vague, and their messages so inconsequential. The messages from the dead never warn us not to go on that holiday to Miami in 2016 because we are going to get mugged, nor do they advise us to put all our savings on the favourite in the 3:30 at Kempton Park. The mediums report that our loved one told us to look after the cat, and do we remember someone whose first name may begin with ‘B’ or ...was it ‘D’ – or something that sounds a bit like that?
In the UK, one of the most well known of these ‘mediums’ was Doris Stokes, who died in 1987, but oddly, considering her belief in the ability of those who have died to return with messages, she seems to have been unable to make that journey herself.
James Randi, now eighty years old, has spent much of his life debunking the work of psychics. He has written several books (including one dedicated solely to a ‘how he does it’ exposé of Uri Geller) and appears frequently on television where he demonstrates how it is possible to dupe an (perhaps willingly gullible) audience. Here he is in a short clip, explaining how Doris Stokes used cold readings to steer her ‘victims’.
Since 1968, Randi has offered a cash prize (now standing at a million dollars) to anyone who could actually provide positive proof of the paranormal.
One astrologer was so certain of his powers that he appeared on “Exploring Psychic Powers Live!” on American television in an attempt to win the million dollars. He said that after talking to people for a few minutes, he could ascertain their astrological sign. In the test, it was agreed that the astrologer needed to get ten out of twelve correct to win. In fact, he got none correct. The million pounds is still available through Randi’s Educational Foundation.
So, Happy Halloween and all that. Keep the curtains closed and lock away the broomsticks. There’s a guy works down the chips shop swears he’s Elvis. There’s also a photo doing the rounds on the internet purportedly showing Elvis appearing amongst the plants overhanging a balcony in New Orleans (left).
If you want to win James Randi’s million bucks – now’s your chance!
Terence Dackombe, October 2010
