copyright Ciaran O'Keeffee

REVIEW: SIMON PETERS (Mediumship Demonstration)

CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FESTIVAL: Thursday 9th June
by Ciarán O’Keeffe ©2005 ¹

Simon Peters kindly volunteered his time, at extremely short notice, to provide a short mediumship demonstration as part of a talk I had been invited to give at the prestigious Cheltenham Science Festival.

The talk was centered around a Parapsychologist’s approach to examining claims of psychic or mediumship ability. The talk provided examples of studies that had been conducted in the past and ones being conducted at present. In addition it provided the audience with alternative explanations for an alleged ability that potential clients should be aware of when consulting such claimants.

As part of the talk, 3 demonstrations were given. One was given by a psychologist who had learnt a scripted reading I had provided 3 weeks before the event. The second was given by a professional mentalist/magician and relied heavily on cold reading. The third was given by a medium (Simon Peters).

The audience, numbering approx. 60, was made up of a mix of members of the public (who had paid approx. £5.00 for a ticket) and also a few scientists who were, themselves, giving talks at the Festival. Simon’s demonstration lasted approx. 15 mins.

Initially he introduced himself and explained how he works, also providing the caveat that it may not work given the environment and audience. He provided an opening statement about a young lad involved in a motorcycle crash and although he provided some information to a gentleman initially who had indicated a connection, the statements didn’t seem to be fitting.

The gentlemen accepted none of the statements apart from the initial description of the crash. Simon was constantly saying how he felt it wasn’t this particular gentlemen that the messages were for.

A young lady then raised her hand when Simon requested if there was anybody else in the audience for whom this information made sense. The reading Simon gave this lady appeared very impressive since he gave detail about the time of death and also the weather on the day of the funeral. These 2 pieces of information are unique amongst mediumship demonstrations in general. For this reason, several audience members came up after the event to congratulate Simon on his demonstration. Though this wasn’t an experiment of the standards accepted in a parapsychology laboratory we can discount a number of alternative explanations for Simon’s apparent success.

Firstly, given that Simon was only contacted by me 4 days before the event and that the event was sold out almost 2 months before, we can discount the possibility of Simon knowing anyone in the audience. Additionally, Simon only arrived a couple of hours before the event at which time I met with him and then he returned to his hotel room to relax. At no time would he have had contact with audience members prior to the event without my knowledge.

During the reading, though there were occasional barnum-type statements, the inclusion of two very precise pieces of information meant little could be attributed to high-probability statements that anyone could accept.

The difficulty is in deciding whether the young lady who accepted the information was accepting all the information or merely one or two statements. Essentially, the information about the time of death didn’t appear to be accepted though, given the environment and atmosphere, it’s inclusion created the illusion that it had.

Additionally, the young lady didn’t accept the statement about the weather at the funeral per se, but answered ‘yes’ to a number of statements delivered at the same time. For this reason it was difficult to work out whether she was accepting the initial statement (a young man in a crash) or the statement about the weather, or any other statement, or none of them and simply answering ‘yes’ to the question because of group pressure.

Either way, I’m indebted to Simon Peters for volunteering his time and also for making himself available for future research.

I have recently received funding to examine mediums in a laboratory context over the next couple of years. The reason for this is that one can never endorse a medium’s ability in the real world due to so many unknowns. In the lab, one can control these unknowns. Simon is one of a number of mediums who has put himself forward to be tested. The funding only covers my time, lab time, and analysis time and minor costs such as travel expenses.

In addition to the above two ventures, I am pleased to be involved in a production about mediumship with Simon Peters. The pilot for the show will be filmed at one of Simon’s demonstrations in Newark on September 7th. I have been asked to be present in order to ensure either a) things run as scientifically as possible, and/or b) comment on the evening’s events.

¹ No section or part thereof may be reproduced without prior consent of the author.