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The film showed a scrap car race
with some cars in flames which I described as 'I feel confined
like I am in a roller coaster but there are cars and flames
flying. Whatever it is I am moving very fast. It's dangerous
but exciting' I did a similar and successful telepathy with
an audience for another regional show called the Workhouse for
Anglia TV.
Our biggest TV triumph came when
London Weekend Television approached us about making a programme.
The producer Peter Davy told us that they had seen my first
book The Psychic Workbook (Vermilion) and felt that some of
the ideas in it would make a super TV programme.
The show would pit us and other
psychics, astrologers and clairvoyants against pundits like
Simon Hoggart, Angus 'Statto' Loughran and the Daily Mail's
own Nigel Dempster to see who would make the more accurate predictions.
Our answers to a range of questions about the future would belocked
in a secret vault for six months and unveiled on the show. Hosted
by Phillip Schofield, this programme would be shown at
peak time, after the lottery, on a Saturday evening and would
reach a mass audience.
In the January they filmed us
making our predictions at the exclusive Hemple Hotel that was
founded by a London socialite. The exclusive Hemple Hotel is
a favourite haunt of many big stars and is often visited by
Michael Jackson. It's a weird place and in my opinion very pretentious.
Outside it just looks like an
ordinary small terraced house. There's no signs or anything
to indicate that it's a hotel. Instead men (or should I say
male icons) dressed entirely black look out for expected guests
arriving in their limousines. As you come the front door you
are immediately faced with a plain white wall which you move
behind to enter the gigantic reception area. This is a huge
white room with no furniture or windows. The floors are made
entirely from white marble and through the centre of the room
runs a long trench of white coals from which rise gentle flames.
At the far end is a big white marble slab behind which sits
a black clad receptionist. She was completely dwarfed against
the whiteness of everything around her. A thought flashed through
my head "Did I pack the embalming fluid?" It would
be quite easy to mistake this hotel for a mausoleum.
Of course the hotel is based upon
abstract art and in particular the ideas enthroned in Minimalism
the movement that gave us such great works as piles of bricks
or blank canvases. In my opinion this was art with a capital
F. We'd have been much more pleased if LWT had spent the money
on something useful- such as our fee.
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 Six
months later in June the vaults were unlocked and the predictions
we filmed at the hotel were compared to what had happened in reality.
By the time it came to the show at the studio and Phillip Schoefield
walked onto the set to reveal our results we had forgotten what
things we had said to camera six months ago. I know my heart was
pounding and so must have Jane's as they replayed the film we had
made six months earlier. Would the journalists shame us? We'd got
a few very minor things wrong but overall we scored a resounding
success with many direct hits. The astrologers and other psychics
who took part also did very well but Nigel Dempster and his team
of pundits were right with many of the general trends but way out
when it came to the specifics.
Jane's hits for 97 included: Michael
Jackson will have a baby son, Mary Allwood pregnant,
Liam Gallegher to marry Patsie Kensit, David Janson
to win a Bafta Award, Victoria from the Spice girls will get married.
And some of mine included: Pamela Anderson treated by psychologists
for depression, England to win 2-0 to Georgia a car hit by a small
meteorite. We also filmed many other predictions which came true
but edited out because of time including floods in Bangladesh, palace
grounds breached, Serbian leadership falls and riots in Hong Kong-
all of which came to pass.
Unfortunately television is looking
for entertainment so the real message that we are trying to convey
gets lost amongst the glitter and glamour of showbiz. Our mentor,
Doris Stokes knew this and made sure people understood the difference
between a psychic and a mediumistic powers. She made it plain that
she couldn't tell the future. She could of course but by saying
this it made the produces and public focus on the real message of
her work which is that the human personality survives death. Predicting
the football results and whatever could be left to the astrologers
and card readers. She was absolutely right and I have learnt how
television can turn profound philosophy into cheap titillating entertainment.
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