That’s the spirit: Our continuing fascination with the after life - Ross Macfarlane KC

In advance of tomorrow’s new Scotsman serial, ‘Edward Kane and the Supernal Sisters’, author Ross Macfarlane KC considers the enduring appeal of Spirit Mediums.

Edward Kane and the Supernal Sisters begins in The Scotsman tomorrow. Illustrations by Lesley-Anne Barnes Macfarlane

“They might not have admitted it, but the men around the table were terrified. Understandable, perhaps, since this was an attempt to communicate with the dead…”

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The idea for the latest Edward Kane serial came to me when I was reading about the explosion of Spiritualism in the mid-to-late 19th Century.

Edward Kane. Illustration: Lesley-Anne Barnes Macfarlane

Apparently, the whole thing caught fire when two wee sisters in upstate New York were having a bit of a prank. Kate and Maggie Fox of Hydesville claimed that they had messages from a dead man - a peddler who used to live there - communicating through spooky knocking and cracking noises in the house. The noises seemed to follow the sisters to other houses too. Their older sister became their manager and - on 14 November 1849 - the sisters took their rapping and crackings to a public venue and this became the first commercial spiritualist-type event in front of a paying audience. The sisters soon became a sensation, giving readings before packed houses and answering questions from The Great Beyond on topics as diverse as which stocks and shares to buy to advising on matters of the heart.

An explosion of other celebrity mediums soon followed - as well as seances taking place in people’s homes - and the whole “craze” (for want of a better word) lasted for the next seventy years. Confusingly, the Fox sisters - 40 years after their first public performance - admitted that the whole rapping/cracking thing had been a hoax - then immediately recanted that admission. So, who knows?

Of course, trying to communicate with the dead is hardly new.

People have always been fascinated by the notion that some essential element of our core personality - the soul, the spirit, the atman, the anatta - whatever your belief system calls it - can’t just disappear once our mortal bodies have ‘given up the ghost’.

In Western tradition, the Bible isn’t a big fan of this kind of thing. Deuteronomy 18:9-11 is unambiguous - ‘….Let no one be found among you…who practices divination… interprets omens….or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD…’

Fast forward two thousand years to more recent times and what do you find? Talking to the dead as entertainment – on the telly.

My late mother (who said that I never listened to her while she was alive, so I’m not going to try to contact her now) used to love that 1970s/80s spirit medium, Doris Stokes, a lady who looked like your granny and always seemed to have the kettle on for her cosy chats with The Dead: to the audience member who has come forward: “Come on, darlin’, your late mother is worried about you - worried that you don’t see too well” (the chap is wearing milk-bottle glasses) “…and your mother says you have trouble with your legs…” (is that leg in plaster possibly a clue here?).

I always liked ‘Granny Doris’ until I read somewhere that, during one of her shows, she spoke to a member of the audience (“Dawn”) relaying a message from Dawn’s dead husband telling Dawn that it had been a good idea to turn off his life-support machine (cue: gasps from the audience!).

What the gasping audience didn’t know was that on that fateful night at the hospital, when Dawn decided to pull the plug, she was asked if she would like to consult somebody first and Dawn replied: “Yes…Doris Stokes…” She then spoke to Doris on the phone and Doris told Dawn to keep her updated - and then Stokes invited Dawn to sit in the front row of the theatre during the show.

Oddly, despite Doris Stokes’ international fame and massive earnings, when she died in 1987, she left a mere £15,291. Maybe she was storing up her treasures in heaven.

More recently, we had people like the late Colin Fry (cue: eerie music, then “Join me now, as we try to bring the two worlds a little closer together…I have this picture in my mind of someone at a funfair…holding up a bag…with a goldfish…”). Poor old Colin. At one point, he was conducting a seance in complete darkness when a luminous ‘spirit trumpet’ started to levitate in the air all by itself. Suddenly somebody switched on the light. Turned out that it was actually Colin holding that trumpet in the air and wiggling it about .

But how do these mediums do it so convincingly? In fairness - there are times when the readings of the psychic do appear to hit the bulls-eye, especially in some of the ‘cold’ readings - readings where it’s confirmed that the medium has no prior connection to the subject.

Studies have shown that there are a number of common techniques that mimic the appearance of a successful reading. These include:

- accentuate the ‘hits’ and ignore the ‘misses’. “I get a feeling that the number 4 is important to you.” (Answer: “No”). “There are four in your family?’ (“No”). “The fourth month - April - something important happened in April!” (“Nope”). “What kind of car do you drive, sir?’ (“A Suzuki Ignis”). “Ah - a FOUR BY FOUR…’

- Cover your options by morphing seamlessly into the opposite of what you just said: “At times, you can appear outgoing…”. (“No”). “But in your real self - inside - you are a very guarded person. Correct?” (“Yes…”).

- Give such a general statement that must hit the target somewhere along the line: “I can see a man. An older man…”. (“I grew up without a father…”). “An uncle, perhaps?’ (“I don’t have any uncles.”). “A teacher…” (“Um, yes…”). “You could never figure out whether he liked you or didn’t like you…” (“Oh - old Mr X hated me.”). “He wants you to know that he didn’t hate you. He just had to be strict with you sometimes. And he’s very proud of what you’ve become in your life…growing up without a father…”

Then - of course - there’s the renowned “Barnum Effect” - the psychic gives a generalised statement that could apply to anybody, but it chimes in with the subject in a deeply personal way:

“You know, at times, you say to yourself, have I made the right decision here?”

The expression was coined referring to the philosophy of the 19th Century showman Phineas T Barnum who is meant to have coined the expression “There’s a sucker born every minute.” . Others, less scientifically, have called this the “Aunt Fanny Effect”, because the statements are so general, they could probably apply to your Aunt Fanny as well.

But, as I say, who knows? Last year, I lost one of my best friends to illness. Charlie was one of those true treasures in your life. A loyal friend, immensely decent and practical (he was a GP), Charlie was - infuriatingly - usually correct in Life’s Difficult Calls. The funeral came and went. Months passed. And then, one morning, when I was checking my Facebook account, I had a friend request. From Dr Charlie. No doubt that it was him - the photo was the one of him with a grin on his face looking at the world through an enormous magnifying glass. I didn’t accept the request. I suppose at some level I didn’t want to know the answer about how this came about. Some sort of computer algorithm malfunction? I preferred to think of my friend laughing away at his joke. Somewhere on the other side. I look forward to hearing his explanation one day. But please, Lord - not yet...

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I hope you enjoy ‘Edward Kane and The Supernal Sisters’. Oh - and the word in the story’s title: ‘supernal’ - I always loved that word from the old Christmas Carol: “Unto us a child is born/Sing with choirs supernal…’. I thought that the word meant ‘supernatural’, but when I looked it up, turns out it’s a bit more benign: ‘…heavenly/celestial…of exceptional quality.’

Oh well, every day is a school day.