Communicating With The Dead In Limerick City

limerick | arts and media | opinion/analysis Thursday October 30, 2008 20:31 by Vincent Devine

Colin Fry will be appearing in the University of Limerick Concert Hall on the 3rd and 4th of November. Tickets are currently on sale for €35.

Colin Fry is a dull fink and documented fraud. His racket involves preying on both the unanswerable grief of the bereaved and the bottomless ignorance of the superstitious. He deserves contempt, or at least ridicule, and never our money.

By far the most famous medium in the U.K. he has a hugely successful daytime show; appears on ‘Psychic Detective’, ‘Psychic School’, and ‘Psychic Private Eyes’, is the author of several bestselling books, and heads the International College of Spiritual Science and Healing in Sweden. In addition to these not inconsiderable achievements he tours Britain, Ireland, and several other countries, performing in front of over two-hundred thousand paying fans, annually. He is praised by these same punters for a gentle manner, profound spirituality, and ability to inspire.

Having heard voices from a young age he began at some point during his teens to realise that communicating with the deceased "wasn't just a party piece", and presumably decided to begin exploiting it for money. Going by the name of Lincoln , Colin Fry would perform physical mediumship as a member of the Noah’s Ark Society (a comically portentous group).

It was during one such performance, in 1992, that the now infamous ‘trumpet incident’ occurred. Lincoln was tied to a chair, in the centre of a circle of punters, and the lights were turned off. So far so gezellig. What was supposed to happen next was that Lincoln would call up the dead, who would move various objects around the room whilst creating appropriately ethereal sound effects. For some unknown reason however the lights were accidentally switched back on to reveal our man Lincoln out of his chair and holding a glow in the dark trumpet over his head.

That venerable institution of sceptical inquiry ‘Psychic News’ reported the story, noting that ‘30 disillusioned people' were there that night . ITV also covered the cock-up and Lincoln ’s reputation was ruined. Mr. Fry later explained himself by claiming that a mischievous spirit named Daniel took possession of his body, and played this prank. Unbelievably (or should I say predictably?) such Orwellian revisionism satisfies many fans. If the retelling of this story convinces only one believer to re-think their faith in these charlatans then I will claim success. I won’t hold my breath however.

Why care you ask? Well, I consider such cynical manipulation of the stupid to be on the same disturbing continuum as nightmarish Dark Ages superstition, creationism, luddism, and other base reactionary instincts. It boils my blood that our innate common sense can be perverted so. Colin Fry's junk act, and the broader culture of which it is a part, is seeped in solipsism and moral stagnation. It is time for an awakening of global solidarity, built in part on a rejection of the retarding influence of mainstream TV culture.

‘It’s only entertainment!’ I respectfully disagree. As an aesthetic event it is a failure, dealing only in cliché. It is rife with jargon and empty language. Cold reading, the technique by which mediums operate, is the mastering of hackneyed generalisations – a sacrificing mum, a granddad in a vest, a favourite dog. These are the kinds of bait that the medium throws out in order to reel in with his other worldly connections. It is the opposite of literature, being both stultifying and platitudinous.

So where should we go to see the act? Birmingham, England , population one million, will be privileged to a single show by Mr. Fry; Glasgow , with an urban population of over one million, will also host one. Manchester - two million souls: only one performance. Colin Fry has, however, pencilled our riverside city in for two nights. How is one to interpret this incongruity? Is Limerick City disproportionately peopled with credulous slack-jaws? Suffice it to assume that the king's airways and priest's entrails will remain untouched for the moment.