At the event I attended, a small gathering (25 or so people) in a private home, people entered, found a seat anywhere in theatre-style chair setup. Attendees found a blank "billet" form on their seats. Attendees were instructed to write on the form responses to specific questions - a dead loved one we'd like to hear from; a venture about which we were concerned. The room was a basement rec room, with a bar at the front.
The billets were folded into quarters, collected by assistants - in this case, the hosts of the event - and put into a basket. The basket was placed on the bar. The "physical phenomena medium" entered the room and spoke casually to the attendees. He described what he would be doing. Much ado was made of opening a fresh packet of blank white 3x5" index cards and putting a big collection of markers, oil pastels, crayons, colored pencils and pens into a different basket - some folks call it a 'snake charmer's basket' - with the cards. A lid was placed on the basket.
The medium taped gauze over his eyes and then put a big dark blindfold over the gauze. He began lifting the billets one by one and opening them. He stuttered and fondled the billets. His speech was a kind of patter, rapid and distinctly different from his pre-blindfold speech. He asked for each person by name. He made reference to their requests. I'd 'seeded' my billet with some quirky info that wasn't real to me. His 'reading' for me was flat and wooden, quoting my billet pretty much verbatim.
After the reading of the billets and delivery of messages from spirits and dead folks, the medium removed his blindfold and an assistant opened the snake charmer's basket. Out came the packet of cards, mixed in with which were cards that had, they explained, been colored by spirits with images on one side and a specific number of names -- five or six -- on the other. The attendee's name was one of the names written on the card; the others were names of spiritual guides or people in history or family members, all of whom were said to have some significance for the individual reading the card.
I could go into a detailed description of the type and quality of image on each card. The handwriting on the back was uniform. Attendees had all preregistered for the event. Several were known to one another and personal details easily shared beforehand.
I attended because two people I love are completely smitten with the medium and promote his work widely, and I'd heard detailed descriptions and seen the products of previous readings and wanted to see the guy's schpiel myself. They'd invited me to attend this performance and I'd replied that I had absolutely no money to attend. I received a personal call from one of the hosts, a working professional medium/psychic/whatever, saying that I could attend on a kind of scholarship - they waived the fee for me.
I was saddened and disturbed by the whole thing. It was several months ago. I left it at that because the people hosting it had been kind enough to let me come without coughing up any dough, but I was quite satisfied that it was a pretty blunt fraud and have used the whole experience as a chance to practice compassionate keeping my mouth shutness.
Yesterday I heard another person I love declaiming that medium's gifts to yet another person I love. I opened my mouth. I feel I need to research the guy at this point. I've fantasized about attending another performance with a magician buddy in tow. Not to make a stink there, but to validate my sense that this is pretty crude trickery. I don't have any magician buddies, though.
The guy's taking an awful lot of money from people.
Thanks for responding.
