Psychic Blues

by Mark Edward

  The spotlight again left me in the dark and made its way unerringly back to Brianna’s next number in the crowd. It was like a tag-team psychic relay. Neither of us had so much as missed a single beat and we were smoking hot.

  Brianna did another one of her red tapes and ended her turn on an almost middle-aged woman who had no family and wanted to know about having children. This was a question I would have passed on, but Brittany gave this woman some hope without getting too medical with her. Judging by the response of the audience, it was considered helpful. But, come on, Brittany—two kids within two years? She wasn’t even in a relationship.

  My last question was from an attractive but lonely-looking woman in her twenties. She was by herself with her arms folded in an almost fetal position. I knew her question was about finding a soul mate. I approached her, or rather green tape number three, then I grasped at my chest near the heart and stood absolutely still for a moment looking at her. She finally looked up at me.

  I made it simple. “Your heart is so big. There have been so many people around you. Now it’s time for you to find that one person who will transform all your dreams into realities.”

  I resisted the temptation to use the tired “tall, dark, and handsome” line, though I’m sure this crowd would have taken it seriously, even if it might have been followed up with laughter. Instead I took a strong left turn out into improvisational territory.

  “I’m seeing someone who has a great sense of humor, but one who takes love very seriously. This person [notice how I avoided using any gender, like he or she?] will have something to do with travel or seeing some new places. If you are thinking about going somewhere, particularly if it’s somewhere you have never been before, you must go there. When you aren’t thinking about finding anyone or anything and just in the midst of that experience of total bliss, you will turn around and there this person will be.”

  She unlocked her arms and sat motionless. I knew I had to push this a little further to get the reaction I was after. Since I had just read her question backstage, it was perfectly okay for me to ask her about it. I knew what her answer must be. “That is what is on your mind, isn’t it?”

  She looked around at everyone and said to me, “You don’t know how great you have made my day. I wasn’t going to come here, but my girlfriend made me come with her. I told myself I would never talk to a psychic, but you hit the nail right on the head! Bless you, Mark!” She reached up for me, got up from her seat, and gave me a very warm and unexpected hug.

  Thunderous applause followed. I had now reached that rapturous summit where few but the gods of old could command. I wondered to myself as I moseyed back to the stage, my ego basking in the bright stage lights, why the producers didn’t just hire actors to say yes to everything we said? Why leave anything up to chance?

  But I knew why. Hiring credible actors was too expensive and these were supposed to be just plain folks, just churchgoing mom-and-pop psychic revivalists. I was certain there wasn’t a single breast implant or face-lift in the crowd. They were all actors, of a sort, but somewhere between unpaid extras and fans of the now-defunct Psychic Friends, probably culled from the endless phone logs the Suits and Ties had compiled back at the home office. Most of them were presumably given a ticket, a free lunch, and a trip back into town for their trouble.

  Wait a minute! Who would buy that?

  The whole thing was a stupefying fraud from the get-go. Who ever heard of a Psychic Revival Network? The concept of mixing psychics with revivalists was just too ludicrous. Using a psychic revival tag would undoubtedly offend anyone who had religious convictions. Plus, attempting to combine soft-pedaled televangelism and family reunion under one tent could only succeed in alienating just about everybody. I knew this venture was doomed to failure. The Friends had pushed the limits of bad taste way beyond anything I might have thought possible.

  I didn’t know that in the next decade Fear Factor would come down the pike, but it’s a fair comparison, in terms of sensationalism, blatant exploitation, and playing to the lowest common denominator. Hearing Nell Carter tell Erik Estrada “I ain’t making you no fried chicken” during their touching on-camera quality time managed to instantly devolve the ancient art of psychic divination and any small measure of integrity into something less than fast-food flatulence.

  We left the Oprah-esque glamour of the raised runway and took our bows with Nell and Erik back at center stage. The band struck up what sounded to me like a New Orleans funeral march. Cheers mixed with pats on the back as we “angels” made our weary way to the celebrity tent.

  It was dark and blustery outside. The crowd moved like cattle back to their idling tour buses, bobbing balloons in hand. I watched the World’s Greatest festive façade topple in front of me, as crews packed up scenery and coiled miles of electric cables. A heavy-set guy in a dark suit ducked into a black limo and jetted off into the darkness; that had to have been the infamous Psychic Friend Michael, controller of the mighty psychic purse strings. It was awfully nice of him to avoid any personal greeting. And like the archangel of the same name, “He shall not fold his cosmic wings about him to return home until the final Angelic Being is freed, the last man redeemed, and the last Elemental returned to its perfect state.” More like the last penny pinched and the last orders given to the line producer, before toasting himself with champagne in the back of his limo on the way to the airport. I was not surprised by his evasive coolness. I might have been able to identify him in court later.

  It was time for me to collect my check and get back to reality. Tom came by the celebrity tent to shake hands with us all and get Erik’s autograph for his daughter. We hung out with this small cadre of insiders for a few swigs of Evian water then were asked to leave as the tent poles were dropped and the grips started packing everything except us into a rented truck. I looked around for Tiffany, who had gone. Nell was long gone. Brianna was gone. Chris and Erik were gone. Only Tom and I stood by watching the whirlwind slow down to what is referred to in Hollywood as “a wrap.”

  “Well, Tom, glad you liked what I did out there. By the way, do you have my check?”

  “Check? Oh, yeah. They’ll probably send it to you in a couple of weeks.” Tom sighed as he put on his black leather jacket.

  “They? A couple of weeks? My agreement was to be paid by you at the conclusion of my performance. I thought you were my contact here.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mark. They’re good for it.”

  I couldn’t help seeing a flickering psychic image of that damn Babe Ruth baseball being tossed around some intra-office orgy and Michael peeling hundred-dollar bills off a huge roll to pay for another lap dance. How long would that wad last?

  “See ya’ round, dude,” Tom said as he walked out of what was left of the tent. I knew I would never see him again. It was one of those psychic feelings you get. He climbed on a Harley-Davidson to make his dramatic exit, spraying a plume of gravel on the last bit of sacred ground where once had stood the Psychic Revival tent and the World’s Greatest Psychic extravaganza. There must be a special ring of Hell reserved for people who put on this kind of sham for a living. Hold on . . . shit! I was part of it! Would my karma ever be cleansed of this awful stain?

  I knew I would soon be back on the phone begging to get paid. I can’t remember exactly how long I begged, calling every week or so between taking my usual 900 calls. A check shockingly arrived after I had given up all hope and pretty much written the whole event off. And within another week, Friend Valerie phoned.

  “Mark, they want you to audition to be one of the psychics on the new Psychic Friends Radio Network. It’s going to be fabulous and a great opportunity to break into nationwide radio every night. They’re auditioning around thirty-five people in L.A. next week. Are you interested?”

  “Sounds interesting. Can I get back to you in a few days?”

  Once the Psychic Revival Network infomercial started grinding out their middle-of-the-night onslaught of screenin
gs, I was rapidly pilloried by many of my mentalist and fair-weather magician friends. My reputation had caught up with me much sooner than I had thought possible. And the worst of the backlash was yet to come.

  My life had returned to relative normalcy and I had taken up my usual cycle of performances. One night at the Magic Castle, before one of my séance performances, I had time to take in a show running in the adjoining Parlour of Prestidigitation. A member I knew, whom I’ll call Jimbo, approached me as I relaxed into my aisle seat.

  Jimbo was never without a copy of Variety rolled up under his arm and had the worst breath in Hollywood. He unreservedly let me know his thoughts. “So, Mark. I’m really shocked that you would sell out like that.”

  “Sell out?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  He looked pained and upset. “You know, the way you sold out to those psychic people. You are a magician, not a psychic. How could you do that? It’s really terrible.”

  “Look, Jimbo. What I do is none of your business. How do you know I’m not really psychic in my spare time? Being a magician and having psychic abilities are not exactly mutually exclusive, you know. I did what I did for a variety of reasons, and I don’t have to explain anything to you or anybody else.”

  Jimbo quietly receded into the audience as the host came on to introduce the show.

  I was more than a little miffed. Jimbo had a notoriously big mouth, and I realized there had been a cold shoulder pressed my way by several other people of late. Had I broken some secret taboo amongst the magicians’ tight little tribe? Apparently, I had somehow trampled mentalism and magic by “pretending to be psychic.” I had crossed some magician-imposed ethical line.

  Later, Jimbo approached me again, after the magic act I’d been distractedly watching was over and I was heading toward the Séance Room. I expected more harassment, but he dipped his hand into his inside coat pocket. Much to my surprise, he brought out his business card and pushed it into my hand. “Hey, listen, Mark. If you ever need any help or an assistant, just let me know.”

  I stood there for a moment stunned as he casually walked away. It had taken him approximately seventeen and a half minutes to reverse his stand on this tricky issue. So much for selling out.

  Hypocrisy of this kind was repeated many times in the following months. But my payback began not long after that with a string of rejections and snubs. My association with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was summarily rejected for what they considered an unforgivable transgression. Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell treated me to a long diatribe, which boiled down to “We can’t have someone who is advertising a 900 phone line representing our group!”

  “Why not?” I asked innocently. “If the group could read between the lines on this, they might recognize a great opportunity to get the inside scoop on the whole 900 operation. I have successfully infiltrated the biggest moneymaking scam since the Three-Card Monte. It’s really a very interesting con, especially when you consider that they made over a hundred million dollars last year.”

  Joe became a trifle indignant after that. I can’t blame him. Duplicity is a form of hypocrisy, isn’t it?

  I’d played a double agent far too long. I was committed to letting the psychic cat out of the bag. Besides, it was too much work trying to play two roles at once, however fascinating it had been. Straddling the barbed-wire fence between the two extremes—skeptic and psychic—had been a high-wire act I had always negotiated without a net. Bob Cassidy, a fellow mentalist who has never held anything against me for any of my adventures and who has a brilliant but extremely open mind, told me to get over myself, accept the fact that I was an iconoclast, and let it go at that.

  As has been said many times, the truth is not at one end or another but instead usually lies somewhere in the middle. Any extremes bother me, and hypocrisy is something I detest in any field. I’m not saying I couldn’t be judged as hypocritical myself for playing one hand against the other throughout the pages of this book. Yet my singular intent was and still is to expose the schism between what is usually thought of as paranormal or psychic and what we believe to be the truth. As Nietzsche once said, “Joyous distrust is a sign of health. Everything absolute belongs to pathology.”

  3 H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception (New York: HarperCollins, 2009).

  4 Back in my halcyon days at the Magic Castle, I had worked hard to create something totally different. After two years of training my border collie Jim to lie still on a levitation apparatus I had purchased, I went on the road with the world’s only fully levitating dog. Jim floated up about seven feet off the stage with the hoop passing and the whole bit. The magicians didn’t get it and failed to see my message; I was twisting a standard magician routine and turning it upside down by using a dog rather than a sexy fishnetted assistant. But audiences loved it.

  5 If the reader doubts the efficacy of the sort of pre-show work and would like to see it in action, this whole ploy is shown in detail on a 2003 NBC television special Secrets of the Psychics Revealed. My participation in this show included revealing this technique, among others, and I succeeded in creating a firestorm of “exposure” controversy among magicians and mentalists.

  CHAPTER IV

  TALKING TO THE DEAD

  GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep!

  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you call them?

  —Shakespeare, Henry IV

  Psychics and soothsayers have been messing with minds for centuries. The cunning and exploitative among us have had plenty of time to sharpen their skills. It’s not surprising that the professional mediums and self-styled “psychic detectives” seen in such profusion on today’s TV talk shows, who are given the benefit of the doubt in prime-time news spots as well as fictional programming, are doing so well in the ratings. People want to see what it’s all about.

  More importantly, people want to believe it’s all real. None of it is, as far as I know. All the same, I certainly want my clients to believe and buy into my product. To the unwary and unquestioning minds watching and listening, the supernatural plays out very convincingly. To them, commercial psychic ability is as undeniably authentic as Nike or Burger King.

  Although I’m seldom called upon to talk to dead people, it has sometimes become an unintentional part of the total package I’m expected to provide as a psychic. To flatly refuse such requests or to admit to not having any other-worldly connections in this admittedly far-fetched branch of my craft would be to decrease my marketability. And by not commenting on what I may hear whispered in my ear from my friends on the Other Side, imaginary or not, I would certainly be acting out of character. Agents, party planners, and private groups pay me for a performance. So perform I must. And as much as I would like to stop and take the time to educate each audience member as to what is truly going on with this whole psychic business, that’s not normally included in my job description.

  It is easy to be open to the vibrations of the cosmos, commune with the ethereal realm, and bullshit with the best of them. I’m willing to absorb only the smallest portion of blame or responsibility for the current scourge of talking-to-the-dead cons. When I can, I purposefully inject some sly humor, or use a metaphor or other verbal device to suggest skepticism. I have always set myself apart from the psychics who claim to be in constant contact with spirits and who use this despicable angle to its most fraudulent extremes. I neither believe in nor condone such baloney.

  One experience I can vouch for personally occurred with Rosemary Altea, an “internationally renowned spiritual medium.” It went like this:6

  During the opening setup period of a show, while audience members waited for the performance to begin, the medium walked the aisles, looking for a seemingly depressed person in the crowd. Fortunately, one was seated in the front section of the audience. That person was sitting alone, looking pensive and a
little blue. (The signs are fairly easy to spot, if you train yourself to notice the visual clues.)

  Dear Rosemary, with her kindly English accent and in her cozy cardigan sweater, wasted no time in making herself friendly and approachable. “Hello. My name is Rosemary, and I’ll be giving readings later in the show. What is your name?”

  “Sam. Sam Parsons.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Sam. Thank you for coming tonight. Is there anyone you would like to make spiritual contact with on the other side?”

  “Well, yes. I would like to reach my father, who I never had a chance to say good-bye to.”

  Photo taken during The Aleister Crowley Séance at Hell House, Hollywood, CA, 2001.

  “I see. I’m so sorry. I see the initial M. What was his name?”

  “You are close. His name started with an L. His name was Louis.”

  Without skipping a beat, and taking full credit for a “close” letter, Rosemary ignored her own mistake and pushed forward. “Ah, yes. And the spirits are telling me he passed away rather quickly. I feel it had something to do with his lungs or with some breathing problems.”

  “No, actually he died after a long battle with heart disease. My wife and I were on the other side of the country when he had a fatal heart attack, so we didn’t get a chance to see him or say good-bye.”

  With an overly sincere “I will see what I can do for you. Thank you again for being here,” Rosemary avoided clarifications, smiled with a bullshit twinkle in her eye, and then swiftly moved on to someone else.

  Thank you indeed. Without too trusting, bereaved people like Sam in her audience, who may have plunked down fifty or sixty dollars for a ticket to the show, Rosemary wouldn’t have much of an act.

  Later, during the actual performance, and long after this interlude had taken place, Rosemary went into her well-rehearsed semi-trance, dramatically spread the fingers of each of her hands over her temples, as if in deep concentration, and invoked the spirit world.