Michael Prescott's Blog

Shameless self-congratulatory post

My book Mortal Faults has been nominated for Best Paperback Original by ITW (International Thriller Writers).

To hear my reaction, click here.

Jack: back on track

I'm really tired of the expression "jump the shark." Every time a TV show has a lapse in quality, an assortment of critics and Internet know-it-alls start insisting that the show has jumped the proverbial shark, i.e., crossed the line from solid entertainment to unwatchable trash. (The term comes from an infamous episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie waterskiied over a shark tank, or something. It was said to mark the show's transition from good to bad ... or more accurately, from mediocre to even more mediocre.)

The latest target of shark-jumping commentary is 24, which was under fire for two or three subpar episodes in a  row. And it's true that Jack's foray into a Russian consulate, complete with the obligatory torture, was not the series' finest moment. It was, in fact, pretty lame. But it was only a couple of eps. No sharks were jumped. At worst, maybe a few guppies were hopped.

What people don't seem to realize is that writing a TV show is hard work, and when you're cranking out 24 hours of drama per season, there are going to be dramatic lulls, problematic plot points, and other misfires. It's inevitable.

And it's not as if it hasn't happened before. 24 has had other bad patches. Remember the misadventures of Jack Bauer's hapless daughter Kim, who was caught in a hostage standoff at a convenience store, kidnapped by drug dealers, and pursued by a hungry cougar? Or Terri Bauer's temporary amnesia? Or the long stretch of time Jack spent cooling his jets at a desolate Mexican ranch until the writers could figure out how to get him back on US soil?

A show like 24, constricted by its more-or-less real-time format, is always going to have its ups and downs. Last season was probably the most consistent so far, and as such it's a tough act to follow. But the new season offers plenty of thrills and twists for Bauer junkies (and you know who you are).

Last week's episode was generally strong, with a shocker ending involving ex-President Logan. Tonight's episode was even better, a fully satisfying mix of ticking-clock suspense, political machinations, office intrigue, and neato plot twists.

In other words, Jack is back - not that he ever really went away. And there's not a shark in sight. 

War of the words

Well, here we go again!

On March 8, Marcel Cairo left this message on one of this blog's comment threads:

Unlike the majority of people who visit here, I have been a mental medium since my teen age years, as well as a member of the spiritualist church for the same amount of time. I have also attended dark circle seances where decepted tricks were used to convince people of a floating trumpet.

My point is, I am speaking from an insider's POV. That said, I want to point out that there is a reason why the National Spiritualist Association of Churches has rejected the practice of materialization mediumship. IT'S FRAUD!

There is no such thing as ectoplasm, and there is no logical reason within the laws of physics or nature why these acts of materialization should have to take place in the dark.

Another one of the ridiculous claims made over and over again by people defending these charlatans and frauds is that any interference with the Medium may bring harm to him/her. Well, I, being a medium of over 23 years, am in no danger from Spirit. Allow me to be bound to them during one of these sessions. Let me "risk" my life. I am not afraid... they are.

I am hereby officially throwing out a challenge to David Thompson, Warren Caylor or Colin Fry to openly pick up my challenge to let me sit bound to them during a materialization session. It's time to turn off the loud music and turn on the lights to this blatant deception.

Michael Prescott has been diplomatic, because that's the gentleman that he is. I am not. I am a hard-headed, American-Argentine medium, and proud of the honest work I do.

You no longer can claim that it's just skeptics that are trashing your claims. I am trashing your claims. Me, the medium. Why? Because frankly, I'm sick and tired frauds tainting my profession!

So come on Australia and England, the gauntlet has been thrown. Which one of you has the balls to take up my challenge?

On March 19, on the same thread, Leo MacDonald posted what is evidently a response from Victor Zammit. I have not been able to find this response on Mr. Zammit's Web site, so I'm not sure where it came from. If anyone knows the URL, please let me know so I can link to it.

Victor rebuts a self styled ‘medium’ who states that materialization séances are nothing but fraud.

For the record: credibility of the cynic is critical. So let’s examine who this critic is and why he tried to launch a dirty attack on materialization mediumship and the sitters of materialization mediums – ie on me too!!. Let’s start first, who is this Marcel Cairo (hereinafter Marcy)? He is not empiricist. He is not qualified to conduct experimentation at professional level. To my knowledge – after sixteen years of intense professional afterlife research, he has never written any acceptable article anywhere about the afterlife. Nor has he done any acceptable work which was confirmed by any empiricist or peer group at all. He appears to be some sort of a small-time, amateur once a week radio programmer/broadcaster. He claims to be a ‘mental medium.’ In terms of the paranormal, he’s a non-entity touting for support for his small time radio.

No one appears to know if he charges any money for his so called mediumship and no one really knows objectively, how accurate he is if he is a medium.

But we never heard of him before; we never ever obtained any independent evidence that he is a medium - let alone a genuine medium. He claims to have attended ‘dark circle’ séances but we do NOT know where, when and with whom he sat. He is too shy to tell us who the materialization mediums were. Cairo claims deception was used regarding floating trumpet, but no one ever reported that bit of interesting news anywhere at the time.

Not having available evidence to the contrary, this Marcy could be a real fraud himself. He could be charlatan, a cheat and a liar himself – trying to dupe innocent people. He could be doing some dirty work for somebody else. If that is the case we want to know WHO is making this Cairo dirty in the way he goes about his attacks. We want to debate the organ grinder not the monkey!

He showed anti-materialization bias when I was on his radio program from Hollywood some 12 months ago. Content analysis of what he stated shows clearly he is actively against materialization mediumship. He just cannot be a genuine medium. No medium behaves like this M.C.

Now, without ever having experienced proper materialization mediumship he makes a dogmatic statement that it is ‘fraud.’ In professional debate, that would be inadmissible because the submission has to have the details of the circumstances where and when fraud took place and who were the witnesses – and whether the witnesses are credible or not. Cairo carefully omits that. He makes an assumption consistent with his own negativism that it must be fraudulent conduct in the séances – the results are too sensational to be true.

Psychologists call that ‘projection’ – attributing to others his own proclivity for fraud, ie, he would be attributing his own fraudulent conduct on to others. This is a primary conclusion when Cairo does not substantiate his claims about fraud.

“There is no such thing as ectoplasm” he states. This dogmatic erroneous statement is also inadmissible because he has not rebutted the empirical evidence submitted by a number of highly qualified experts, including a Nobel Prize winner Professor Richet from France, Prof Crawford, a physicist from Scotland and what we witnessed ourselves during our own materialization experiments. Our sitters, all open minded empiricists- not spiritualists, nothing to do with religion, have witnessed ectoplasm being emitted out from brilliant materialization medium David Thompson.

“ … there is no logical reason within the laws of physics or nature why these acts of materialization should have to take place in the dark …”

Cairo here exhibits colossal paranormal ignorance: he shows he knows absolutely nothing about non-physical energy and how it works. He mentions the ‘law of physics’ when we are dealing with non-physical energy.

A little illustrative digression: this guy reminds when Professor Donald West in England made a fool of himself in public when he stated that ‘there is no ectoplasm’ and boasted that materialization Helen Duncan hid over two yards of white cheesecloth in her anus. Then during the séance she pulled it out to make it look like it was ectoplasm. I challenged this good Professor if he himself (or if he could bring somebody else) to demonstrate that to us, I will give him twenty thousand dollars. This professor went into silence for many years after that. Or will Marcel himself would like to demonstrate that to us? I challenge you to do that Marcy!

“ … the ridiculous claims made over and over again by people defending these charlatans and frauds is that any interference with the Medium may bring harm to him/her.”

Again, Cairo failed miserably to do proper research and makes ridiculous claims himself. Materialization medium Helen Duncan was killed when during one of her séances in the dark, the arrogant Nottingham police raided the séance room and put the lights on. The ectoplasm bounced back into the medium and as a result of this she died a few days later with the injury caused by the light being put on. Incidentally, during her trial in 1944 over 43 witnesses with the highest credibility testified about how genuine Helen Duncan was and NOT ONE WITNESS was discredited. She is known as the first of the contemporary Spiritualist martyrs.

“I am hereby(sic) officially throwing out a challenge to David Thompson, Warren Caylor or Colin Fry to openly pick up my challenge to let me sit bound to them during a materialization session. It's time to turn off the loud music and turn on the lights to this blatant deception.”

Here we have a non-entity totally uninformed about materialization mediumship. He does NOT come across as a serious truth finding researcher who exhibits competence that he can perceive the paranormal with empirical equanimity. Marcy has made up his mind BEFORE the experiment! How amateur can you get?? His conclusion is final – ‘don’t bother me with empirical facts – it’s all fraud’ he says and imputes. His definitive ‘can’t be true’ has blinded equity, fairness, empirical balance. His wild and outrageous statements show how ignorant, silly and negatively prejudicial he is. His personal beliefs in closed minded skepticism have blinded him of what is empirically tested truth.

No legitimate medium will allow such outrageous suggestions for Marcy to be tied to the medium especially, when he has aggressively stated that he has the potential to sabotage the legitimate procedure of the materialization experiment with the potential of harming the medium.

Being tied to a medium will inevitably mitigate against the materialization procedure. That is not fair to suggest something which is diametrically opposite to materialization protocol.

What is fair, reasonable and professional is for Marcy to try to duplicate the results the Circle of the Silver Cord gets – and if he can he gets a cool guaranteed $500,000 as one flamboyant skeptic national debunker stated a number of times. When I challenged him to put up or shut up - to duplicate our results, he kept as quiet as a mouse.

M Prescot website is not supported by professionals. Prescot himself is not a professional empiricist. He has no credibility at all as a legitimate critic. He raises issues that are silly and his logic is not up to standard at all. He tends to repeat other people’s errors, as does Cairo – both of these gentlemen show, by their conduct that they are closed minded skeptics with an apriori negative bias against materialization mediumship. This is something which is not accepted at professional level debate.

Now, if Marcy has to direct professionals to take us on at professional level – I guarantee that David Thompson and other respected materialization mediums will be more than happy to oblige. My challenge of $500,000 for anyone who can duplicate what we do every Sunday night is current.

Got the fortitude, the courage, the balls, the brains and the cash for it Marcy.?

Marcy, put your money where your mouth is. Again, for the record Cairo, put up or shut up!

My advice: Let's not get all hot and bothered about this little dust-up. In an area so fraught with controversy, some disagreements are inevitable. But I do want to say that I participated in a group reading, via an Internet-based teleconferencing service, with Marcel Cairo, and all of the participants were extremely impressed with his accuracy, professionalism, insight, and modesty. I think that he is a genuine medium, and I believe the other participants came to the same conclusion as well.

That said, I'm not so sure "there is no such thing as ectoplasm," as Marcel says. While a lot of allegedly ectoplasmic phenomena have been faked, some of it seems (in my opinion) to have been genuine. Also, while a mental medium may not be in any danger from bright light or physical contact, I think it is possible that a physical medium may face such risks. The two phenomena are different.

My opinion is that some physical mediums have been legitimate - D.D. Home and Eusapia Palladino are the outstanding examples - while others have been fraudulent. I would not dismiss all materialization phenomena by any means. The modern spiritualist movement began with the Fox sisters in Hydesville, and I think they were legitimate, at least in their early years.

Some good books on this subject include The Limits of Influence, by Stephen E. Braude; Sittings with Eusapia Palladino, by Everard Feilding; Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spirituaism, by Barbara Weisberg; and Ghost Hunters, by Deborah Blum (which covers a variety of mediums, mental and physical).

Your tax dollars at play

Today I got an email from someone demanding to know if I've changed my mind about superskeptic James Randi, who is, the emailer assured me, "one of the good guys."

Okay, fine. Another point of view is always interesting to hear. But I couldn't help noticing that the message was sent via the Pentagon's email system, meaning that the writer is employed at the Pentagon and was writing from work.

Now, I admit I don't follow the news as closely as I used to, so maybe I've missed a recent outbreak of world peace. But the last time I scanned the headlines, I noticed a few disturbing international developments:

Sectarian violence in Iraq continues. US troops remain bogged down in an occupation of Baghdad and other major cities. Recent terrorist acts by insurgents have included the detonation of multiple chlorine bombs that sickened more than 350 people.

The Taliban is on the move in Afghanistan, aggressively attempting to retake control of the fledgling democracy.

Iran is threatening to kidnap and execute US servicemen in Europe, in retaliation for alleged kidnapings of Iranian military officials.

Iran remains on track to develop a nuclear bomb. Iranian president Ahmadenijad has vowed to obliterate Israel.

Other Middle Eastern countries are now voicing their intent to develop nuclear weapons, and a nuclear arms race in the region appears to be underway.

One of America's most important allies in the war on terror, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, is struggling to hold on to power in the face of massive public unrest. His removal could seriously complicate US policy for years to come.

Russian investigative reporters, defectors, and critics of the Putin regime are mysteriously dying in a variety of creative ways. Putin is instituting measures to regulate the media, including the Internet, in an apparent attempt to stifle freedom of expression.

Senior US military officials acknowledge that the Iraq War has left all branches of the armed services gravely short of personnel, equipment, and training. Some liken the the situation to a "death spiral." The chairman of the House committee on military readiness says, "We have to ... fix the damage to readiness caused by the Iraq war. This crisis is evolving ..."

Osama bin Laden remains at large more than five years after 9/11.

Now, with all this going on, don't Pentagon employees have more pressing priorities than the defense of the Amazing Randi?

Apparently not.

A New Age Bond

All the critics said Casino Royale was a new type of James Bond film. They may have been more right than they knew. Although the film has many of the trappings of earlier entries in the series, it also carries an unusual subtext with distinctly unBondlike overtones.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Anyway, here's what I saw. (Warning: a couple of specific though relatively minor plot spoilers follow.)

Bond is introduced as a raw agent earning his license to kill. Much is made of his inexperience and his lack of refinement. He is, as M indelicately puts it, "a blunt instrument." Both M and Bond girl Vesper Lynd tell Bond explicitly that he must lose his ego - advice he is too cocksure to accept. His impetuousness and arrogance lead him to commit several costly blunders.

And then things change.

Bond dies.

Well, he dies for a few seconds, anyway - his heart flat-lining until a defibrillator revives him.

When this happened, I had a cheeky thought: I wonder if Bond had a near-death experience. This idle fancy took on more significance when, in a later scene (unrelated to the defibrillator episode), Bond regains consciousness to see hazy, ghostly, possibly angelic figures against a field of bright white light.

We now have been exposed to two of the iconic images of the NDE - the resuscitated patient and the appearance of spirits in bright light. And what is the most commonly reported aftereffect of an NDE, other than a diminished fear of death? It's a change in personality, an evolution  toward a more mature, less ego-driven mindset. Which is exactly what we see in Bond.

After his reawakening he is mellow, serene, even loving. His "armor" has been stripped away, he says. He even quits his job. He wants to get out of the business of killing in order to preserve ''what little soul I have left." This may be the only time in any Bond film when the word soul is mentioned, and certainly the only time when it's meant to be taken seriously.

Needless to say, Bond does not remain permanently in his newly enlightened state. Circumstances intervene. The armor is strapped back on - never, we suspect, to be removed again. And yet briefly we did see the real man - the real soul - beneath the facade of the ego and the armor of the killing machine.

As I said, I may be reading too much into a slick, globe-trotting action film. But I suspect that someone - writer, producer, director? - slyly slipped a New Age subtext into this movie, investing it with a layer of meaning unexpected in a film of this type.

If so, it was a high-stakes but ultimately winning gamble - exactly what one would hope for in Casino Royale.

Material girl

The homepage of my ISP asked this trivia question today: What is Barbie's last name?

I didn't even know she had a last name. It turns out she does. In fact, she has a whole biography. The Wikipedia entry on Barbie tells us:

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. According to the Random House novels of the 1960s, her parents' names are George and Margaret Roberts of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie has been said to attend Willows High School in Willows, Wisconsin and Manhattan International High School in New York City, (based on the real-life Stuyvesant High School). Barbie has an on-off romantic relationship with her beau Ken (Ken Carson), who appeared in 1961. Like Barbie, Ken shares his name with one of [Barbie creator] Ruth Handler's children. Mattel announced in February 2004 that Barbie and Ken had split up, but in February 2006 they were back together again.

Barbie has had over forty pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned pink convertibles, trailers, jeeps and more. She also holds a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners in addition to serving as a flight attendant. She has been, among many others, a veterinarian, an astronaut and a diplomat.

Barbie has indeed had an impressive variety of careers. In addition to the ones mentioned above, these include cheerleader, paleontologist, NASCAR driver, president of the United States, and yeoman on the Starship Enterprise.

The downside of Wikipedia's open-to-everybody style of editing is revealed in the discussion page about the Barbie entry, in which the more serious contributors complain about constant vandalism of the page by sarcastic kids. Here is one of many revisions that had to be deleted:

Barbie is a piece of crapy plastic that perverted 4 year olds adore. Unfortunately it is also the best-selling doll launched at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. The doll is a cheating slut who cuts out on 6 of her 9 husband one of whoms name is Steve. He was a scuba diving whale massacrer produced by Mattel, Inc. Barbie dolls and related accessories are all infected with multiple diseases which upon contac can kill a squirell, put an adult into a coma, or turn a child into an apple.

After numerous similar incidents, Wiki had to protect the Barbie page from further abuse by making it harder to revise.

The discussion page also notes this embarrassing incident from Barbie's past:

In May 1997 Mattel introduced Share a Smile Becky a doll in a hot pink wheelchair. Unfortunately, the Barbie Dream House was not handicapped accessible. Becky couldn't fit through the door or in the elevator.

And it gives us this Barbie joke:

A man goes into a shop to buy a Barbie doll for his daughter, looks at the various models on display and asks the shop assistant in a puzzled way: "Why is Divorced Barbie so much more expensive than the other dolls?" "That's easy, sir," replies the shop assistant. "Divorced Barbie comes with Ken's car, Ken's house, Ken's furniture..."

Letter to a Christian Web site

Although I respect and admire Christianity and have read quite a lot about it -- in fact, at the moment I'm reading Mika Waltari's historical novel The Secret of the Kingdom, about the days following Jesus' crucifixion -- I'm occasionally reminded of the vast gulf that separates me from this religion.

Today I got another such reminder when I looked in on a Christian apologetics Web site that I occasionally visit. The proprietor, bringing us up to speed on current events, has this to say about the polemical atheist Sam Harris:

I had in mind to do a response to Letter to a Christian Nation in print, but with Sam Harris now coming out as a believer in reincarnation and psychic phenomena, I'm not sure we need to do more than let him self-destruct as a spokesman for "reason".

So apparently anyone who "comes out" as believing in reincarnation and psi is in the process of self-destructing, at least as far as reason is concerned. This from a Web site that devotes most of its energies to proving that Jesus performed miracles and exorcisms and rose from the dead!

It's not terribly surprising that a Christian Web site would reject reincarnation, even though there is considerable evidence for it (and if you doubt it, read Jim Tucker's new book Life Before Life). The fact that the Bible does not endorse reincarnation is presumably reason enough for the believing Christian to reject it.

But the situation with psychic phenomena is quite different. Numerous examples of what can only be called psi phenomena are scattered throughout both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. St. Paul famously enumerates the various gifts enjoyed by members of his congregation*, including prophecy and speaking in tongues -- which today we would call channeling or mediumship. When the apostles experience a revelation on Pentecost, we're told that tongues of fire whirled around the room -- sounding much like the spirit lights seen in many modern séances (Acts 2:2). The first letter of John advises us to "test the spirits"  (1 John 4:1).

But there's no need to continue. Entire books have been written interpreting the Judeo-Christian tradition in terms of psi. One of them, Spiritualism in the Old Testament, is available online.

It's amazing that people who are open to the reality of miracles and the spirit world can remain closed off to modern evidence that would only support their worldview. As far as I'm concerned, Sam Harris deserves credit for being open-minded enough, despite his atheistic belief system, to at least consider the possibility of paranormal events and life after death.

---

*"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues." 1 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV

Flotsam and jetsam

Interesting item from Paranormal Review about the Housing Minister of Australia, who has publicly declared that she believes a medium put her in touch with her deceased grandfather. The story is not detailed enough to prove much, but it shows that the stigma attached to the paranormal continues to decline. I would venture to guess that ten years ago - or even five years ago - no high government official would have made such an announcement.

Guy Lyon Playfair may be right: the skeptics have lost the Thirty Years War.

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Out on the road today, I saw two instances of reckless driving - people who risked a serious accident just to reach their destination a few minutes sooner. No one who was really aware of the dangers involved would do such a thing, but these drivers are not aware. As Eckhart Tolle would say, they are  unconscious. They are in the grip of the ego to such an extent that the possible consequences of their actions have no reality to them. In a sense, they are possessed by an evil spirit - only the evil spirit in question is the ego itself, with its rage, paranoia, self-centeredness, and short-term emotion-driven thinking.

The escalating cases of road rage may indicate that more and more people are DWU - Driving While Unconscious. Some people, including Tolle, tell us that a shift in human consciousness is happening. I'd like to believe that ... but I see little evidence of it.

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Speaking of consciousness shifts, I just read an abridged version of Richard Maurice Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, a 1901 classic of metaphysical speculation. (I didn't realize I was buying an abridged version. The unabridged version is available for free online as a PDF file.) Bucke has interesting things to say, but some of his remarks are very dated. His comments on the varying degrees of moral development of different races reflect the casual racism of  a hundred years ago, and his claim that the Bushmen of Africa have not developed self-consciousness is more than doubtful. (The peaceful Bushmen may well be worth emulating, not criticizing.)

At one point Bucke delivers a disquisition on color vision, making the often-repeated claim that  ancient peoples (e.g., the ancient Greeks and Hebrews) did not perceive the full range of colors that we see today. This dubious assertion is based on the paucity of terms for different colors in ancient writings; Bucke says that only red and black are mentioned in the oldest texts, and speculates that other colors were distinguished only gradually. He also theorizes that color-blindness is a throwback to the earlier universal condition.

I did a little checking on the Web, and came up with this article from The Straight Dope which seems to effectively debunk this theory. It turns out that the number of words devoted to different phases of the color spectrum has nothing to do with the eye's ability to perceive gradations of color.

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Have you spent much time reading online reviews of movies or TV shows? I have, and I'm slightly shocked at the juvenile negativity of so many reviews. It seems that a lot of people feel their highest calling is to criticize other people's work.

And for the most part, the criticisms lack originality and depth. The same statements recur over and over. If you read a review of any fantasy or SF film, you will soon find someone complaining that "they should have spent more time on the script and less time on the special effects." And yet, other reviews of the same movie will complain that "the special effects were pathetic." If the star of the movie is controversial, reviewers will quickly aim their comments at the person's off-camera life. Some Netflix reviews characterized Mission Impossible III as a "gay action movie" featuring "closet-case Cruise" in "homoerotic situations." I must have missed this; it seemed like a pretty standard thriller to me. I also missed the "Scientology propaganda" that some reviewers claimed to have perceived in the storyline. Reviewers also have a minimal grasp of film history. Any movie produced before 1990 is described as "old." If it came out  before 1980, it's "really old." I can't imagine how these reviewers would characterize, say, The Birth of a Nation. Really really really really old, I guess.

The Internet is a great technology, but unfortunately it seems to be used for an awful lot of griping and kvetching and other negative thinking. Sadly, I've been guilty of this myself. Maybe online reviewers, bloggers, and Web masters should make a conscious effort - emphasis on conscious - to dial down the attitude and to encourage appreciation, uplifting commentary, and positive thinking.

Otherwise, the World Wide Web is in danger of becoming the World Wide Whine.

Our curious world

The creator of a blog called Our Curious World has called his site to my attention. It's an interesting, fun, and open-minded site, so I'm linking to it. I especially like the section on spirit photos, even though I share the author's doubts about some of them. There's also a long post on Atlantis, which gives more credence to the Atlantis story than I probably would, but is certainly worth reading. 

Give Our Curious World a look. There's no denying that our world gets curiouser and curiouser every day!

Vanishing act

Although I think many paranormal phenomena are genuine, I'm skeptical about most physical (i.e., materialization) mediumship. This article at the Paranormal Review site gives me additional reasons for doubt. Some excerpts:

Visitors who have attended physical séances at Jenny’s Sanctuary, an Oxfordshire healing and psychic centre, have reported amazing phenomena, including the materialisation of a spirit guide in white light.

They have been promised that medium Warren Caylor, 37, will produce even greater wonders – including full-form spirit people who can be photographed and filmed. But those hopes may have been dashed by the medium’s “dematerialisation” – he has walked out of the centre after a dispute....

[Circle leader Ron] Gilkes believes that the former forklift driver is motivated by material rather than spiritual considerations, having found that he can earn over £1,000 a week from his physical séances.

Caylor is said to materialize a Native American spirit guide named Yellow Feather. But since Yellow Feather steps out of the cabinet while Caylor remains inside, the natural supposition is that Caylor is impersonating the spirit. His supporters maintain that Caylor is bound so securely to his chair that he cannot free himself. They go into detail about the ropes and cable ties that bind him, perhaps forgetting that escape artists are skilled at extricating themselves from just such predicaments. Paranormal Review continues:

But such impressive counter-fraud measures have to be weighed against the content of the séances and, in particular, the celebrity line-up that, increasingly, seems to be waiting in the wings of the darkened Banbury séance room. They include the spirits of comic magician Tommy Cooper, “Queen” lead singer Freddie Mercury (who sang along to his famous hit, “It’s a Kind of Magic”), jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong (who initiated the singing of “When The Saints Go Marching In”), Sir Winston Churchill and Princess Diana. They all put in appearances on the same night, at Warren Caylor’s first public physical séance at Jenny’s Sanctuary on 9 November 2005.

It is believed that medium Colin Fry, who began as a physical medium but is now best known as a platform medium and TV regular, is not happy that his spirit guide Magnus, who is presumed to work exclusively through him, is alleged to have spoken at Caylor’s seances.

Spirit envy! This kind of petty rivalry, along with the roster of celebrity guest stars, is why I just don't take these performances very seriously. (I do, however, think that a few physical mediums have been legit - D.D. Home and Eusapia Palladino, for instance.)   

The Paranormal Review piece does include the interesting claim that Caylor, or rather Yellow Feather, detected a tape recorder that one sitter had smuggled into the seance in his pocket. If true, this may - emphasis on may - show some legitimate psychic ability at work. Or maybe the item just "printed" against the sitter's clothing.

The article also mentions that Caylor's "powers ... were first recognised during a séance at the sanctuary by another well-known British physical medium, David Thompson, who now lives in Australia."

Louis Armstrong, one of Caylor's regulars, has also shown up at Thompson's seances. It's good to know that Satchmo is still getting steady work in the afterlife.