Andy Warhol was the Consummate Consumer Whose Work Appeared to Critique a Cultural Craze; Work Which Also Served to Craft a Refined Model of the 20th Century Phenomenon It Seemed to Have Cleverly Questioned.
Fame is an American obsession and it is arguably as essential a component of Americana as are Apple Pie and the pyrotechnics shooting across the night sky on the Fourth of July. Following celebrity news is the less-physical alternative national pastime to the sport of Baseball.  Andy Warhol’s insight into the now highly evolved machine which churns out stardom today seem like the eerily astute annunciations of a latter day, pop culture Nostradamus.
Famous people have no problems, but if they have turbulence in their lives it is of an enviable variety because heck, the rocky road of a star is paved with gold. The rich and famous are perpetually happy, even when they are upset. These are ridiculous statements which reflect a narrow sentiment. Nonetheless, the sentiment is shared almost universally at one time or another by people internationally. It is an intensely American mode of thought which has drenched the global cultural climate. It is the worst byproduct of some of our most audacious and successful innovations in technology; and also the evolution of our values and ideals away from the spiritual and to the material.

The concept certainly existed before this country did, but it exploded with the advent of Hollywood after the creation of film as a visual medium. As is true in so many other instances, America has taken an old idea and brought it to new places; highs and lows. But I say that as a matter of digression. Film was and is a compelling visual medium. Hollywood made film stars into commodities and the resultant fan-fixation by the ordinary people created a niche market within journalism. A new sector of reporting was in demand and money was to be made by those people quick-minded and enterprising enough to provide it. Basically, there was a new need for more gossip columns, tabloids and celebrity “news” reporting.
Prior to focusing on motion picture stars reporters had written about the envied class of the super rich in “Society” pages. These were the folk to obsess over during the years before the advent of the superstar entertainer in America, an age which seemed to dawn during the bleak years of the Great Depression and to become formidable as the nation regained its economic vigor in the post-war years during the 1950’s.  Illustrious gossip columnist Louella Parsons, and those of her ilk wrote who wrote stories related to Hollywood royalty would more likely have been sent to Newport, Rhode Island on assignment to cover the exciting lives of the Astor and Rockefeller clans during the summers at the tail end of the 19th and first decade of the 20th Centuries.
During the 1950’s Andy Warhol was a largely unknown artist living in New York City, ready to have his nose fixed and preparing to unleash his own fame on the nation and world. An anonymous person on the brink of acclaim and notoriety. By 1970, he was an iconic figure and by the year of his 1986 death he was a living legend. His posthumously published diaries prove beyond any doubt that he was both a famed, elite member of the glitterati as well he as an avid fan– obsessed with the lives and personal details of his famous friends.

Before he became this strangely bifurcated celebrity/fan he was an undiscovered artist. One who was taking notice of certain trends in advertising in print and  television. Surely he understood the way in which this force could shape image and boost sales. Before his own fame would come he was fascinated with the theme of mass production and advertising and obsessed with the concept of fame and celebrity. Noting trends in how actors, debutantes and first ladies were portrayed was likely something he did enthusiastically. When not thinking about fame he was pondering the phenomenon of mass production. His comprehension of the profundity of the truth, that factories could turn out thousands and thousands of identical, disposable items was crucial to his role as a creator.

The  confluence of the notion that something good could be duplicated several hundred thousand times and the idea that human beings could be groomed for glamor in the marketplace was problematic and inexorable.  The result of this combination is  ethically  suspect. Numerous psychological disturbances have been cradled by the corporate world via advertisements which sell their productions. Adverts loaded with visual instruction to be thin, to be tanned, to be perfect.  We are lucky that it was the mind of  Warhol which focused on this topic and that his the perception of the hybrid born of glitzy fame and infinite duplication demystify  his mind led him to make bold statements about fame, the value of humanity and the ease with which the entire nation could buy into the notion that almost everything, and just about anybody is replaceable.

At the same time, television journalism was being pioneered. The news was delivered via this magical new technology to the home of the viewer in pictures. This was also a compelling medium and allowed for serious journalism assume a striking visual component. This had never existed. The newsreels played in cinemas were an approximation, but they did not have as strong of an impact on the viewer as did the televised broadcasts. Television news hit the viewer in the gut simply because it was something watched at home.

That National and International  news stories could be zapped invisibly through the air and then be seen as images moving and in real time, and with sound was unprecedented. Enormous breaking news stories were delivered to members of the population as they sat in their homes. Including stories as monumental as the assassinations of Martin Luther King and the two Kennedys and the 1969 moon landing. All were broken to the people while they sat in their living rooms in moving images, with trusted journalists narrating. Journalists had once toiled in anonymity as they wrote for the newspapers. There was no need for reporters to be attractive or to have the type of charisma which comes across best visually. A fine wit would find a way into words and the words were what mattered before the advent of television.

Reporters could be frumpy or downright ugly when nobody saw them.  But after television began covering news, the new medium presented a challenge. People working as television journalists became more attractive and more polished. Executives realized that actors and actresses could become famous while working  on Soap Operas and Situation Comedies. Television news could also make a celebrity of the right personality. Looks became important, as well.  While David Brinkley was very effective and reliable and admired, his looks did not present the prototype. News Anchors and Anchor Women were carefully selected; looks, insight, speech and the way the viewer related to an anchor were all major factors to be considered when hiring.

People seemed to respond naturally and organically to Peter Jennings and Jessica Savitch. Both were articulate and considered to be good-looking.  Each was blessed with camera-ready charisma. Never mind the reality, which was that Jennings had  managed only to obtain an education through the 8th grade and that Savitch was addicted to drugs, depending on cocaine to make her slim and smooth over her personal woes. Those details did not matter, nobody at home knew any of that. Peter Jennings was capable, smooth and dignified. Jessica Savitch was glamorous, educated and her manner of speaking was copied by many other women on television. Ironically, she spoke as crisply as she did because she had a speech impediment as a child which she diligently worked to overcome.Jennings and Savitch are serious journalists, that is arguable but not when they are comparede to their contemporary components
During the 1990’s the relevance  of serious reporters and prime time anchors began to erode as the news began to pander to the needs of the market. The market demanded more stories and reports about the famous. Talk shows became very successful and presented an easy way to obtain a small but often scandalous portion of fame. When you think about Andy Warhol’s quip that in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes, it’s difficult to not think about the Jerry Springer Show and the guests he would have on. A parade of slobs  involved in bizarre love triangles, ready to dash out across his stage and in front of America to divulge some filthy secret which anybody who was mentally stable would not announce in a c0ffee shop, let alone on national televison. What other reason did they have but to graner attention and a quick shot of fame? They got to be on T.V. after all.

Another route to televised fame was established when “Reality Shows” were popularized as the decade closed. The Real World, which began airing in 1992 became a template in various ways for these shows. A group of people who represented different demographics and who could be counted upon to yield a decent crop of culture clash and resultant verbal tiffs which people enjoy watching. It was easy to be on a show like that. Talent was no longer any requisite for fame because of these shows. With the arrival of the internet and with blog sites devoted to celebrity news, the concern with serious news, national and international, seemed bound for the confines of memory.

By the present time, in 2010, traditional journalism is nearly a relic of an era during which actual news was reported. Nowadays, television news magazines fail to cover pertinent stories in many instances. Instead their producers opt to secure “exclusive” interviews with whichever famous personality is currently saturating the minds of the masses. Usually, if you look closely enough, you can quickly realize that many of these “it girls” are not very interesting at all and that their personalities are just likeable enough for some clever P.R. agent to have managed to find some shred of charisma in a person who has an atypical set of life experiences. Maybe a lot of folks would have failed to notice anything there. But sometimes, maybe  because her father won a Grammy and she went to rehab and she cut a single–which no record company was interested in but it’s all over the internet–sometimes these people get real famous. The set of circumstances I just created would make for a lovely pitch for a reality show. Especially with the right Svengali is hovering overhead, pulling all the right strings.
Warhol seemed to love to pick people and make them famous and to manipulate that fame like a Svenhali– and he seems to have done so as a hobby. For example, he annually picked out a  “Girl of the Year” and doted on her, feting her with parties. He made every effort to see that she was photographed and filmed, revealed to as broad an audience as possible. His early choices were great beauties like Jane Holzer who was nicknamed “Baby Jane.” Latter inclusions reflected either his deep admiration for old money or his interest in chaotic personalities. Edie Sedgwick was the embodiment of each and was given the title the year following that in which the statuesque blonde, Baby Jane Holzer had been. Holzer later made disparaging comments that Warhol was encircled by freaks and dope. Sedgwick seemed to thrive in the same environment which Baby Jane had found so repellant.
In choosing and in using Edith Sedgwick, Warhol behaved in the following multiple roles, all at once: The talent agent, the producer, the admiration addled and overwhelmed gawker born poor who is impressed by money and pedigree. He eventually allowed her to be his muse and later made her his confidante. In time he assumed yet another role, and behaved much as today’s managers or public relations geniuses would. By creating somewhat interesting, yet staged events for which Sedgwick was to be the focal point.

The young heiress Sedgwick was admired for her slim build, big dark eyes and her athletic legs. But other than behaving like a walking mannequin and acting in mute roles in Andy’s films,  she did little. What she did when not starring in one of Andy’s experimental films was indulge a horrific narcotics addiction and to get belittled by other men who felt she was a viable actress with true star power. She should be in Los Angeles, making real movies! They thought and shewas told frequently. for allowing herself to star in his ridiculous films when she had a great look and a charisma all her own. But she was too unstable and drug addicted to do that. Andy Warhol eventually acted in the plural role of the American Public as it does when it has grown tired of the substance abuse-fueled and other shenanigans of one of its young Starlets— He dropped her. He dropped her thoroughly, the way the entire nation would drop Lindsay Lohan some forty years later.
What Warhol did with the folks he admired, be they his friends or eventual foes is not my concern, here. I am more intrigued by what he accomplished through his visual works of art, barring his use of film. The centrifugal topic of this paper is what he was able to say about the state of affairs concerning fame, the erosion of the value of individuality in the era of mass-production and the huge force of which the powers of advertising and marketing were capable.
The questions raised here can never be answered in a satisfactory way. Questions about Warhol’s role as cultural critic making an unbelievably potent statement about what the concept of mass-production meant to the individual are brought up routinely. What some fail to see is that while he absolutely acted as a critic of both mass-production and of fame, he also was an eager participant in both the game of winning fame and was an enthusiastic proponent of mass-production, too. His works were made in large numbers in a studio named, of all things, “The Factory.” There, he paid a pittance to a crowd of devotees who toiled at copying his original art and getting the replications finished. His studio was not only a “Factory” in the nominal sense. It was an actual factory. Sure, it masqueraded as a very hip place to see, be seen and in which to party, discuss any number of topics or to dance, but it still was more like a factory than the majority of us can ever really know.
What Andy Warhol’s most important works of art asked us was, has anything ever been authentic? What is so alluring about celebrity, and what is ultimately so ugly about celebrity? An artist who understood the Fame Machine and how it operated as many years ago as did Warhol would be surprised at the level of fakery and plasticity amongst the Stars of today. Or would he be? Perhaps the most likely answer is no. Perhaps Warhol had a deeper understanding of the direction in which the Fame Mill in which he took an interest was actually headed. Perhaps Warhol, himself was complicit in the greater development of the same Fame Mill. We know he understood celebrity and yet it is difficult to understand if he was only lampooning this national obsession in certain works. Quite possibly, he was not complicit. Instead his portraits of celebrities and his own enthusiasm for the concept of fame and respect for the power of marketing inadvertently added an influence which has streamlined the manufacture of today’s Superstars. This influence must have been bestowed inadvertently, for there was no way to predict the wild popularity and association with Pop Culture his name would carry. Pop Art, indeed. Today’s Pop Stars are as much the heirs to Warhol’s legacy when his love of fame is considered as they are as likely to have inspired his scorn were he alive today, his equally negative opinion of the same concept also examined.
Has anything ever been authentic? Smoke and mirrors and the blatant imitation of roles set by forgotten and archetypically endowed actors or society mavens years ago account for the inspiration of the creation of innumerable celebrities. Add to this the phenomenon of reality television, which has caused an entire generation of younger people to believe that one can become nationally famous for doing nothing—because it is true.
Andy Warhol was obsessed with the American pastime of stalking celebrities—not in blatant terms, but through the more innocent channels presented by the media, in magazines for example. Warhol himself desperately wanted to be counted amongst the famous and he created some of his best-known works of art by simply mirroring back at those who viewed his creations their own fascination with the concept of celebrity. Amongst his most readily recalled works are the series of portraits he created of famous people: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, amongst others.
But almost inarguably, most concede his best-known work of art was his simple recreation of a Campbell’s Soup can. Simple as it may, this is amongst the most iconic images from the 20th Century. Not merely from the Art World of that period but in very general terms, this image was and is still so renowned that many are exposed to it without making the chance at decoding or demystifying it. What subliminal meaning could lurk behind such an innocent image, anyhow? People unfamiliar with the true value and import inherent in the work are too many in number.
This was the work which made declarations about fame and the value placed upon individuals in an even more effective voice than he could ever have made in any of his portraits. Because while not an illustration of an overexposed human being, it re-affirmed the idea that more-and-more, American citizens were becoming increasingly affected by advertising. Anybody with a pulse could identify the object in that piece. It was a brand name item made in huge numbers in factories for mass sale.
Remembering that his celebrity portraits were created as a series beginning either after, or at about the same during which the soup can became his most famous subject tells us two things. First, that he was making a clear statement about the power of advertising and that its influence was so undeniable and pervasive that again, anybody viewing that work knew immediately what they were looking at, so he was also asserting the power of “brand.” Nobody could evade the power of brand when advertised, because the visual component of a particular brand is huge so long as the visual is somewhat compelling.
The can of soup may not have been visually stunning or beautiful, but it mass produced and advertised and hence it was made into an item which was then, and today remains ubiquitous. No matter how ubiquitous are the cans which contain the soup made by the people at Campbell’s or the ground coffee made Folgers’ may be, they are designed primarily for one utilitarian reason. That is, to hold a product. The consumer who buys such a product for use at home must necessarily purchase the package in which it comes. The tacit understanding of this consumer at point-of-sale is simple. Once he has used up the contents of the can or box and the package is emptied, it will be cast into the garbage with no accompanied sensation of loss.
Nobody thinks about buying the can when setting out to buy soup. It is not the province of some brigade of intellectuals to make the deduction that these canisters have no intrinsic value whatsoever to the consumer. They are utterly disposable; bits of waste meant to be cleared from the kitchen the moment they are void and no longer able to yield anything of use. That some items are universally considered useless when they no longer hold the goods they had when freshly acquired is not in and of itself a profound concept. Until that bare and boring fact is contrasted with another reality– that the same packages bound for the dumpster are so readily recognized by members from every sector of the population.
His portraits of Marilyn Monroe were not only finished as single-image portraits but also made as diptychs. Others show her image more than two times as in a diptych, but in multiple duplicates as if she had been mass-produced at a factory. In many ways she or a Star of her caliber could so easily be perceived. Knowing a few facts about the way Hollywood operated during the mid-twentieth century would make such a contention far less difficult to form. The studios ran every aspect of the lives of their biggest Stars. They molded and manufactured people. Taking a diamond in the rough, so to speak and refining it until it glimmered and glinted as a true star would. That she was sold by the studio which had refined her is not untrue, and a lot of time was spent by studios when cultivating people like her. The studios dressed and clothed, colored the hair and applied the makeup to their Stars, employing a great number of professionals for these purposes. Additionally, the studios worked with the press to assure that most scandals could never start. Homosexual male actors were routinely sent out on staged “dates” with females who may have been heterosexual or may not have been.
The Movie Stars of the 1950’s and early 1960’s were like Barbie or Ken dolls and seemed to have no problems because any messiness in the personal arena was cleaned-up by the studio. In the case of Marilyn, who had a problem not only with some unspecified mental illness but also with drugs, the studio doctors were called-in to keep her supply of pills plentiful. She ultimately suffered a breakdown which could not be covered-up by any studio. She required hospitalization and the press soused down on her with cameras as she emerged from a psychiatric ward. She was young when she passed away, aged only 36 years. When Marilyn Monroe died the myths about cover-ups surrounding her demise began to swirl and these are sometimes still recounted today.
Is that what people really want when they seek fame? To be famous seems to ensure that even in death society will haunt you, and not the other way around. You will become a sale item and your image, your belongings and any film in which you starred or note you may have written will increase in value when you die. How on earth is that understood as a glamorous concept and not seen as the maudlin, convoluted reality which it, in fact, truly is?
Warhol’s most insightful statements were about the coalescence of both fame and mass-production. It is rare that a can of soup comes under the scrutiny of an artist and neither is it commonplace that the same object would become subject matter for his work. Therefore we must question why this particular artist, with his well-documented preoccupation with fame as well as concepts of marketing.
I cannot imagine that his decision to name the studio in which his art was produced “The Factory.” That this was a wry, tongue-in-cheek or cute action is possible but I think that supposition actually diminishes his motivation to have so christened his working space. That he produced his many celebrity portraits in this environment, with its highly suggestive name warrants a closer examination. A second look at not only the name he gave to the place in which he created his work, but also a more comprehensive evaluation of those images of well-known persons which he conceived and made within these premises.
Warhol remains as inscrutable and enigmatic twenty-four years after his death than he ever was in life. His work hangs in respected museums and is sought after by wealthy collectors internationally. His art and its potent messages, which at once had seemed to contradict one another, now seem to have eerily commingled and today we have a distorted brand of celebrity about which Warhol either warned us to avoid, or which he championed and even played an active role in creating. Those seem to be the two most easily appreciated realities. That Warhol was instructing his viewer to dislike the way things had become or that he was extolling the nature of what he loved in the works I have mentioned. There is a third reality and is a well-rounded one in which the artist was probably aware of the contradictions inherent in his messages.
That final possibility, and the one in which I trust, is that he was the epitome of the fan, one who loved the famous and who chased fame himself. In doing this, he became increasingly aware of the mechanics which create famous individuals. He learned that bare circumstance alone was not enough to account for a person becoming a Star, and that there was a machine behind the entire phenomenon. Besides from learning this, he saw the utterly cold the truth about how celebrities are made and destroyed. He had to learn, at some point, that people were made into Stars only because they were meant to be sold. Again, his keen understanding of marketing and advertizing came into play. In reality, the potent force advertizing exerts over the population is unthinkably strong. It can charm them, swaying people to be compelled into the purchase of one brand. It can make them love a particular Star. The same mechanics which create and sell disposable cans to hold soup are not identical to those which make celebrities. They are, however, very similar.
The throw-away culture in which we live today is simply a heightened version of the reality which Warhol espoused in both his duplicate images of Hollywood Stars and via his Campbell’s Soup can. Perhaps some of the authenticity we believe is innately human was still at work within the souls of the consumers as well as within the souls of the human chattel while he was working on his portraits. Now, Human Beings without real fame are commodities sold for less than nothing on television and more of late, online. No, nothing is completely authentic and we are alone without a wizard who can predict the next turn-of-fact. After all is written about Warhol, perhaps his greatest role, the role of a prophet, warrants much more analysis and scrutiny.

Jeffrey Justice

One such case was tried in Toronto in 1995. Standing as the defendant was Paul Bernardo, then just shy of his thirtieth birthday. His wife, the former Ms. Karla Homolka was there as well. Yet, while graphic videotaped evidence had been uncovered (which showed Karla enjoying herself assaulting the couple’s adolescent female victims) Karla sat on the witness stand as the star witness retained by the Ontario Crown against her estranged husband. The country had spent millions searching for Bernardo as the perpetrator of a series of rapes in suburban Scarborough and now wanted to convict him of two teenagers whom he had abducted, and with the help of his wife drugged with sleeping pills and a potent general anesthetic Karla had stolen from the veterinarian’s clinic in which she worked. Though actual complicity and equal roles were easily appreciated by anybody who had heard about the grisly videotapes the couple had made to document their many crimes. Though she lied and broke the plea deal arrangement in various ways, Ontario Crown would not re-charge nor break the initial deal struck.

Reputations were at stake. Public officials allowed a Canadian woman who was an active participant in serial killing, abduction, multiple acts of rape or sexual assault, unlawful confinement and drugging and physical torture of victims… This was some scary stuff and yes, this woman stayed in prison for her entire twelve year sentence and then was freed on July, 4 1995. One victim was her own sister whom she had allowed Paul to deflower after she had rendered her unconscious with a mixture of drugs on Christmas Eve, 1990.

She became a mother two years after her release and had earned a B.A. in psychology in jail, where she also learned to speak French. Supposedly, she now lives either in the Montreal area with baby and partner. There is an alternate story that she has fled Canada for a French Language Island in the Caribbean and lives in the Tropics with her husband/boyfriend and son.

Amanda Knox had none of the overwhelming and damning evidence against her like Homolka did. Nor did the three teenagers collectively known as the Memphis Three. However, new evidence seems to be strong enough that their three convictions could be overturned and therefore one will be removed from death row.

The flawed legal systems at work in nations all over the world convolute what they should, by definition, issue. Justice is so perverted and in so many cases like a rag, wrung this way and that way by hands designed to manipulate and drain circumstance. At the end, the truth has also dripped from the rag and it lays discarded on the street.

I am very much convinced that in the case of Amanda Knox, there has been a miscarriage of justice and so I am again writing about her case. There is hope that the 26 year sentence she was handed in Perugia, Italy will be lessened on appeal. Still, how hard it seems to reconcile her fate with that of Homolka who is enjoying life after prosecutors made a foolish deal with her and refused to dismantle the arrangement when she was shown to have violated its terms.

Justice in America, they say, is only for the rich. It seems as though a dearth of fairness in legal affairs is possible in any country. We cannot stop monitoring these grave injustices because when we do, they are bound to increase in numbers we cannot imagine. Amanda Knox is somebody to whom we must extend our hand in fairness. She is not asking for any manner of clemency she does not deserve. She is an innocent and I have known this since I first had a dream about her, after I had heard sketchy details about some vague “sex crime and murder by an American girl overseas.” After I had an intensely detailed dream I looked for information about the trial and learned as much as I could. This whole time, I have felt very pure in my purpose and wish only to see a massive wrong made totally correct.

The consensus amongst Italians is that Amanda Knox is guilty and was fairly tried. This sentiment is mirrored in Britain, from where the victim hailed. The same is not necessarily so in the United States. Amanda Knox was a twenty year old college student from Seattle, Washington who was tried in a foreign nation. Could the contrast in reporting the details of her trial and between her characterization in the American and foreign press due simply because we must accept “ownership” of Knox? Are we apologetic for this child because she is one of ours? Are the forces of Nationalism to blame? Many Americans have been disturbed by the legal system through which she was processed and there exists a large degree of doubt in the United States about the fairness of this trial. Donald Trump has personally called for a boycott of Italian products based upon his own reaction to the Knox verdict. He urged the boycott in a post he made to his own blog. That an internationally recognized tycoon would react with such emotion, attempting to exert his power to punish the Italian economy speaks volumes about the passionate emotion the ultimate guilty verdict continues to exert. There is no middle ground.
Nationalism, hatred of strangers and love of countrymen were forces which were almost impossible to argue did not sabotage the trial of this particular woman. Xenophobia is of course, not peculiar to any one country. It exists, and we should monitor our own thoughts when it comes to how we feel about those amongst us who are not citizens. The most horrific example of the almost supernatural power which Nationalism wields is easily accomplished by remembering Germany under Hitler. Easily the wickedest man to have walked the earth, his understanding of Nationalism and Nationalistic fervor were the manner through which he accomplished his agenda. Hitler was evil and therefore, he used a power equivalent to that of religion as a weapon. We all know what religious fervor can cause. We all remember the attacks on NYC and at that time, we became intensely Nationalistic. Perhaps we needed to as we were dealing with great shock and concern that these events would be followed up by more domestic terror attacks. At the same time, some Americans became oriented against any person who they believed to be from the Middle East. This resulted in violent attacks against Americans citizens. There can be no doubt that when National Origin comes first as a matter of pride, visibility will grow weak and trouble will ensue.

As a psychic, writing this blog for my own website which focuses on my occupation as a psychic, I feel it necessary to go on the record and state why I am writing this blog. I did not sit down to write only about Nationalism and its hazards. I wanted to address the subject of Amanda Knox, herself. Neither may seem like appropriate material to be covered here, and so I offer up my explanation as to why I am using this venue to address these topics: .I do so because of my work. I am, in all instances, a person who is motivated by his psychic ability. I believe I must explain my thoughts on Amanda Knox because I believe her to be innocent. As a psychic, I am unable to see her as the ultimate, murdering force in this utterly sad case. As both a psychic and a human being I must mention that I have never lost sight of the fact that this was a murder case with a very lovely, very unfortunate young lady as victim. She cannot be brought back. Amanda Knox is also a victim in this horror show. Her life has been transfigured in ways we can barely imagine. Her family thousands of miles away, grieves as ardently as do the loved ones of the poor murdered girl. It is a different manner of grief, knowing that your daughter is alive but because of a convoluted investigation and a trial which could have been better orchestrated by middle-school students, you cannot properly enjoy that daughter. Life is sometimes as tragic and revolting as it is sublime and just.

It is not solely upon my psychic impression upon which I base my opinion. After arriving at that opinion via my psychic abilities, I still felt that a responsibility remained to examine whatever sources were available which would feature the evidence collected against Knox which would have been used to convict her of murder. It was while I conducted this research that I became both sickened and angered. I saw no damning evidence against Knox or Raffaelo Sollecito, who is the son of a physician and an Italian citizen. The case was tried vehemently by a rabid prosecutor who now faces two years for a number of legal infractions of which he has been accused. He is also a man who is an ardent devotee of conspiracy theories involving satanic ritualistic murder. He had initially included one hell of a fantasy about the 20 year old Knox and Sollecito being engaged in some sexual orgy which was of a satanic nature. He later changed his tune because it was just too far-fetched and some had noted that he was prosecuting people based upon suppositions made while examining the Myspace pages of both Knox and Sollecito, the content of which was horribly twisted.

Eventually, he withdrew this fabrication and concentrated on prosecuting Knox as the “mastermind” behind the murder of Merideth Kercher. This time, he explained the motive as having begun as a relatively normal feud between roommates which had accelerated to the point where Amanda orchestrated a violent sex game with Sollecito. His rationale was that Kercher had become upset with Amanda for bringing strange men into the flat at night. The press, already focused on the fresh-faced, attractive girl as being a sexual deviant of some sort, followed his lead. Amanda Knox who, as one paper printed had, “the face of an angel but the eyes of a killer,” stated in so many words that Knox had murdered Kercher because she was a prude.
This sort of story was printed frequently. In Italy, juries are not sequestered. The Knox jury ingested daily doses of printed and televised broadcasts sensationalizing Knox as a sinister femme-fatale. In Italy, juries need not be unanimous in their decisions.

The twenty year old Amanda Knox had once endured an interrogation for fourteen hours using extreme, sophisticated and aggressive techniques. One author has quipped that these techniques are meant “to break the mafia.” That she did not give a confession during that long interrogation is actually remarkable if you consider the confusion—the abject terror a young woman in a foreign country who had suddenly become a murder suspect. Since no evidence clearly points to her as being the killer, it can be assumed that she was so strong because she was confident she could never be found guilty. Reports that she had broken down and confessed were widely circulated. In fact, during a grueling fourteen hour interrogation all she did was change her story, after being coached to do so because she was told that she was having some sort of trauma-induced amnesia. So, her official statement that she had not been at home on the evening of the crime was replaced by a murky, meaningless “confession” that she may have been there and may have heard something.

The press was very concerned with her strange behavior as she became implicated. At various times she was reported as having turned cartwheels during a break in official police questioning. She was seen on television canoodling outside the villa where the murder occurred with her boyfriend. I have seen the video, and it looks to me that he is attempting to console her. I read about the cartwheels and this was something I did think strange. Until I remembered the way people deal with stress and stressful circumstances. They deal with them individually. They do not always act as others would expect. These were extreme circumstances and I believe that, if anything, she was trying to occupy herself and not think about the fact that she was going down the river. She probably knew she was, she stated at trial she was called “a stupid liar” during questioning. She has also alleged that she was hit in the back of the head by a female guard who told her she had struck her “to help you remember the truth.”

The press was concerned with more than her icy demeanor. I think it’s worth mentioning that the “Foxy Knoxy” nickname Amanda has been criticized for using on her Myspace page was not one she adopted as a young woman obsessed with sex. It had nothing to do with any reference to sex. It became her nickname at age eight while playing soccer, a game for which she had some talent and would continue to play as she grew up. The innocuous name, assigned to an eight year old was relentlessly exploited by the papers during the time leading up to her trial and as it was conducted. The readership bought the idea that the papers sold. Papers overly employed mention a silly nickname as an effective tactic by which to make her look like a party girl who was frigid emotionally… but not sexually.

A very different Amanda Knox is easily appreciated by watching videos of her family giving interviews on sites like Youtube. This other Knox emerges from the shadows of one very much engineered by the press in both Italy and the United Kingdom, where the victim, Merideth Kercher was from. The Amanda revealed is not only an intelligent and attractive woman, but one without any blemish on her record. She appears, by all means, to be the poster child for the “All American Girl.” She had a lifelong interest in learning and displayed an impressive aptitude for languages. An honors student at University, she took her interest in language seriously and eventually her study of Italian and German led her to the decision to study abroad.
She arrived in Italy and settled into a quaint villa in the old, quaint and provincial town of Perugia. Initially the student was utterly enthralled and constantly sent messages home about the happiness she had discovered. She was happy with her courses, her flat and with those she shared it. She was enjoying a new job at a bar… and falling rapidly in love with Sollecito. An exciting and fulfilling life and a new love with a young Italian man about her age, her life seemed like a dream. It soon became a nightmare. She would shortly end her career studying German and Italian in class only to become fluent in Italian during a two year stay in an Italian prison, awaiting trial. She never bargained she’d be in court there, representing herself in Italian.
She was arrested on the morning of November 6, 2007, following police questioning on the 5th and 6th of November. She was found guilty of murder on December 4, 2009.

From the Wikipedia article detailing the Kercher Murder, the following was taken. It is a bold statement about nature of the “evidence” used against Amanda Knox: “Apart from the alleged murder weapon, there was no forensic evidence such as DNA, hair, fibre, blood, skin or fingerprints, directly indicating that Knox had been in the bedroom where Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and murdered.”

Amanda Knox Before her Italian Nightmare

Modern American Spirit Communication began in an innocuous setting: a very small cabin-like structure in rural Hydesville, New York. This was the home of a Family named Fox. The daughters of the uneducated rustic married couple who lived in the house caused quite a stir: First locally, nationally and ultimately, internationally.

31 March 1848—

This date is considered by some to be the proper birthday of the Spiritualist Movement. The rapping heard in the Fox Family home began on this date. The family believed that the rapping was actually the sound produced by the spirit of a peddler who had been robbed, murdered and buried in the Fox’s basement by a former occupant of the home. Other citizens of their village also heard these sounds and were also convinced that they were produced by an unhappy spirit.

1848, 1849—

The Fox Sisters became a sensation due to the association people made between the girls and the Spirit World. They seemed like unlikely candidates to be discounted as frauds because they were very young girls (Kate Fox was only ten years-old when the phenomena first began and Margaret Fox was just two years older than she). Since the children were from a small village and their parents were unlettered they may have seemed too unsophisticated to appear as participants in some great deception or racket. However, there were three Fox sisters. The third was a woman more than twenty years older than Kate and Margaret. It is widely accepted as fact that this elder sister, Leah Fox, took on the business of managing her juvenile sisters’ careers and made herself a considerable amount of cash in so doing.
During these years the two Fox girls were shuttled all over their home state and then to other parts of the nation. They were exhibited in large halls where people would crowd in together to see the first mediums— two little girls— summon up spirits and have them produce rapping sounds. The youngsters were ultimately brought to Europe to perform their “act” there, as well.

Early 1850’s—

Spiritualism, which is a religion, was birthed out of the excitement revolving around these two girls. The development of a religion from the attention these girls attracted happened when local Quakers entered the picture and attempted to assuage any anxieties which members of the Fox Family might have felt initially, when nobody could explain the thuds and rapping they heard about their home. Mrs. Fox has been referred to in books as a very fearful, superstitious woman who felt that there was something diabolical about the raps and the way the girls could “command” unseen forces to produce these noises. The Quakers and Leah Fox seemed more willing to accept that these manifestations could be of a divine, and not a devilish, origin.

The first true Spiritualists were a liberal lot and detested slavery. Most Spiritualists, in the early years were devoted abolitionists. They were also concerned with women’s rights and supported suffrage and Utopian ideals.
They usually met at the homes of friends who were also interested in séances and summoning the dead in order to receive messages. It is interesting to note, however, that the Universalist Church had many Spiritualists amongst its congregation in those times. Before Spiritualists could build their own churches, they were allowed by the Universalists to use their church structures.

1853 –

In England, if you received an invitation to tea at the home of a fashionable friend, you would likely engage in “table-turning” or “table-tipping.” Table-tipping was a popular method employed to contact spirits during those times, as well as today.

1855—

The acclaimed medium Daniel Dunglas Home arrived in England from the United States. Mr. Home was a baffling and enigmatic man and was the greatest example of a “Physical Medium” ever to have lived. Today, people still to question how he did some of the feats for which he was famous, including levitation and temporarily elongating his limbs. Physical Mediums were associated with fraud, but Home was never proven to be a charlatan. Definitive “proof” backing up the appalling feats Home was credited with performing stands far too slender a chance of ever being uncovered. Thus, his particularly grandiose displays of physical mediumship will necessarily be looked at as inexplicable and vexing curiosities.

American Civil War Years—

The Spiritualist Movement was a fad before it was a viable religious movement. By the time the United States Civil War had begun, mediums were working virtually everywhere, because the clientele was everywhere. Spiritualism had developed an unfortunate problem by the time the War began: It had become entertainment—its serious nature was being overlooked. The séance was a chic, somewhat macabre diversion for the upper classes. Yet, simple table-turning was no longer getting anybody excited. The number of mediums who promised “apports,” “ectoplasm” and Spirits “playing” musical instruments grew corresponding to the number of people who were willing to pay for this kind of a show. Needless to say, mediums who promised apports and the like were certainly frauds.
In response to the burgeoning number of false mediums, societies dedicated to either proving that mediums could—or could not—contact spirits were formed because people who seriously believed in communication with the Spirit World had a strong desire to keep the fraudulent mediums from practicing their trickery and from sullying the reputations of true mediums.

It is important to comprehend how attractive the concept of communicating with the dead truly was. Not only was the topic of interest to the wealthy people who first held séances in their homes; it was relevant to each and every person. Nobody escapes death. Mary Todd Lincoln understood this fact of life very well. She lost children to illness, and she had sessions with a medium while living in the White House. During the Civil War era death was a ubiquitous presence. Because there was a new technology— photography— people were able to view the battlefields, with casualties strewn all over their surfaces. Mediums were sought after during the Civil War for obvious reasons. Since then, studies have reflected that with each war the United States becomes involved in, there is a rise in the number of people who believe in— and pay visits to— mediums.

The 1870’s—

Fraudulent mediums did injure the nation’s appetite for Spiritualism. It remained popular, but the wild popularity of séances was no longer there. However, there were many true believers and it seems that they became as motivated to prove that life continues after bodily death as were those who wanted to prove that the dead are gone forever. Staunch supporters of Spiritualism, and of mediums, were involved in literature, and in science. The author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of Spiritualism’s most active public relations workers. Sir William Crookes, the British chemist, was also dedicated to his belief in the phenomena of communication with people who were alive in the Spirit World. Victoria Woodhull was an anomaly in her day because of her great success on Wall Street. Woodhull had once worked as a medium, herself. Victoria Woodhull was also the first female to run for President of the U.S.A—Years before women even had won the right to vote.

21 October 1889—

Spiritualism was dealt the biggest blow  its credibility  could possibly take when one of its originators and most respected mediums, Margaret Fox, stood before 2,000 people and publicly denounced Spiritualism as nothing more than a lie. She made this shocking declaration in New York City at The New York Academy of Music. After she addressed the audience, she agreed to demonstrate exactly how she and her sister made the rapping noises which she had, until that night, maintained were sounds produced by spirits. She explained that she had merely been cracking her toes, and that her and her sister were both able to crack their big toes in such a way that made an unusually loud sound. She then performed her demonstration– It was a little demonstration which could have taken down the church forever.

The two younger Fox Sisters had once been an overnight sensation. They had also managed to parlay the initial fascination the public felt for them into long careers as mediums. Outwardly, things appeared well, but the reality was that the women were plagued with personal troubles. Kate, who many felt was a better medium than Margaret had married an Englishman. Margaret had fallen in love with an Arctic explorer named Dr. Elisha Kent Kane and was married to him. Kane’s family never accepted Margaret and there are doubts as to whether or not she was actually legally married to him. His family despised her for her humble background, her uncultured way of speaking, and her career as a medium. By 1889, she had also developed a debilitating dependency on alcohol.

November, 1889—

Nearly a year after Margaret Fox shocked the world with her statements about Spiritualism and her own fraud, she recanted. The reasons most often cited for her public denouncement of Spiritualism is that she was approached by a newspaper which offered her cash if she would tell the world that Spiritualism was a lie, and she was nothing more than a fake. This makes sense, because Margaret was so dependent upon alcohol that she was unreliable and was receiving little work as a medium. She needed the money: for food, for alcohol. The money the newspaper paid her didn’t last very long. She knew no other way to make money besides performing as a medium, and so she recanted. The damage to her career and credibility was irrevocable, however, and by 1893 both Margaret and her seemingly luckier sister Kate were both dead. They each died penniless and were buried in pauper’s graves.

1912—

A shy, southern housewife named Pearl Curran experimented with a Ouija board one evening with a friend. During their session with the board, a powerful personality began to spell out messages of a quirky, wry nature—all in Old English. Mrs. Curran nor her friend had any knowledge of Old English. Curran developed a close relationship with the spirit who had come through: a woman who identified herself as “Patience Worth.” Patience Worth was a fine writer and Curran served as a secretary for her. Together, they published books of poetry. Professors familiar with the style Patience Worth wrote in are baffled at how a woman with no understanding of any of the rather unique features of that particular era’s speech could write such beautiful verse in so accurate a voice.

1920’s—

The famous magician Harry Houdini begins his personal attack on mediums. Subsequent to his mother’s death he became extremely embittered towards all mediums.

1935—

In Boston, Ma. Beacon Hill socialite named Mina Crandon (wife of renowned surgeon Leroi Goddard Crandon; at one time known as “The Witch of Beacon Hill”) was evidently quite close to proving that she was a true physical medium. She was ultimately discredited, though there was one judge who disagreed with his colleagues. Trickery was discovered when Mina attempted to fool a panel of scientifically-trained judges into believing that her Spirit Guide, who she claimed was the soul of her late brother Walter, had somehow managed to push his thumbprints into plaster or resin. The clever Crandon nearly got away with her game and would have won a magazine’s financial prize and enjoyed status as a truly tested, legitimate physical medium. Her hopes and reputation were soon dashed, then decimated when it came to light that the prints belonged to a man still very much alive—Crandon’s dentist. He furnished his own prints willingly or not. Most likely, he was her knowing accomplice. Crandon became reclusive, was ostracized by Boston’s Social Scene and was derided as a fake and as a pathetic shell of her former self. She died years later, and was seemingly completely forgotten. She had become the ghost her brother had already been, though she was still living.

Only when she died were the details about her past foibles as a paranormal fraud re-circulated as the newspapers printed up her obituary. Meantime, details about the blue-blooded “medium” and her elaborate hoax came out in the press. Almost immediately after she received this posthumous attention, she faded from Boston’s collective memory altogether.

1970—

Jane Roberts publishes a revolutionary book, Seth Speaks. Like Pearl Curran, Jane Roberts did not take credit as the author of this book, but claimed to have served as the channel for an entity calling itself Seth. Seth refers to himself, according to Roberts, as an “energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality. Like Pearl Curran, Jane Roberts also met her “author friend” while using a Ouija Board.

1977—

JZ Knight claims to have had her first encounter with “Ramtha” who she claimed was a highly evolved, incredibly wise Spiritual Being who had led many lives, but preferred to appear and speak (she began to “channel” his voice while in trance) in the persona of a warrior who had lived on Atlantis many thousands of years in the distant past. She began publicly channeling him after that and was known as the most famed channel in the country throughout the 1980’s. Although she was essentially doing trance mediumship, the terms “channeling” and “channel” were quickly coined and these terms (as well as the concept to which they referred) became staples of New Age jargon and eventually wormed themselves into the much broader pop-cultural lexicon.
Knight was a highly effective channel or performer and she won the respect of influential people, most notably actress Shirley MacLaine. Much later on, in the 1990’s, Knight also went into court in order to prevent another woman from channeling Ramtha. She won this case, bizarrely—thus setting a precedent concerning ownership rights of the alleged soul, or spiritual being, of a long-dead man by a living person.

1990’s—

Mediums such as Rosemary Althea and James Van Pragh are popular guests on television talk shows and mediums write successful books. At the end of the decade, the medium John Edward had begun producing his own television show “Crossing Over,” which brought new attention to the concept of Spirit Communication. However, his success also brought out many critics, and it would appear that the idea of communicating with spirits is always going to be one which people will feel strongly about—one way or another.

The current decade has shown a huge increase in the public demand for mediums. The recent developments have truly opened doors for many psychics and mediums. More on this in my next blog!

With my Most Sincere Wishes for Health and Prosperity, Jeffrey Justice
26 July 2009

THE “SENSATION” EXHIBIT WHICH CAUSED TORRENTS OF BAD PRESS AND CERTAINLY LIVED UP TO ITS NAME HERE AND ABROAD. THE EXHIBIT WAS BANNED IN NEW YORK CITY BY THEN-MAYOR GIULIANI WHO WAS DISGUSTED BY ANTI-RELIGIOUS (ANTI-CHRISTIAN) CONTENT ON DISPLAY IN SOME WORKS AND ALSO REPULSED BY THE USE OF EXCREMENT (ELEPHANT DUNG WAS THE MEDIA EMPLOYED BY ONE ARTIST WHO HAD PAINTED A VERSION OF THE MADONNA). GIULIANI FAILED TO GRASP THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT CHOICE, WHICH– TO MY UNDERSTANDING– WAS NEVER INTENDED AS AN ATTACK UPON THE VIRGIN MOTHER, HER ASSUMED CHASTITY OR HOLINESS.

THE CONTROVERSY “SENSATION” ENGENDERED ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC WAS ENORMOUS. TO HAVE A POLITICIAN SILENCE ARTISTIC EXPRESSION COULD SEEM APPROPRIATE, AND YET, ONE MUST WONDER WHAT CREDENTIALS WAS GIULIANI EQUIPPED WITH? WE MUST ASK, FURTHER– WHY SHOULD HE, OR ANY OTHER POLITICO, HAVE THE RIGHT TO ASSUME THE POSITION OF ARBITER AND FINAL DECISION-MAKER CONCERNING WHAT IS OR IS NOT ART; WHAT IS OR IS NOT OBSCENE. IN HIS CASE, GIULIANI DID NOT EVEN HIRE A CONSULTANT WITH A SOLID COMPREHENSION OF ART OR SOCIOLOGY WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO EDIFY THE MAYOR ABOUT THE CULTURAL DISPARITIES AND HIS (TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE) INABILITY TO SEE THEM.

In Britain, ANGRY MOBS ARRIVED AND FLUNG INK AND RAW EGGS UPON A PAINTING BY MARCUS HARVEY: A PAINTING ENTITLED, “MYRA.” NO AMERICAN WOULD HAVE BEEN INSTIGATED BY THIS PORTRAIT. AN AMERICAN AUDIENCE WHICH MAINLY WAS AND REMAINS IGNORANT AS TO THE IDENTITY OF MYRA HINDLEY MAY HAVE FOUND AN OFF-PUTTING QUALITY IN THE FACE “MYRA” SHOWS THE WORLD. IT MAY HAVE LEFT THE VIEWER FEELING MOROSE AND OVERTLY SOMBER– THE ODD, PINCHED NOSE AND TOO-SLENDER LIPS, THE MESS OF THICK WHITE, PEROXIDE-DAMAGED HAIR– STYLED LOOSELY, ITS BANGS LANDING SOMEWHAT SOFTLY JUST ABOVE A PAIR OF DIABOLICALLY PIERCING, ANTHRACITE EYES, TWO COAL-LIKE BEADS WHICH MAY BE DESCRIBED AS SULLEN, UNFORGIVING, CALLOUS, SOULLESS, PENETRATING AND CERTAINLY, HARSH. THIS WAS A FACE ONE COULD EASILY ASSOCIATE WITH ADVANCED AGE OR UNPLEASANT LIVING CONDITIONS. YET, “MYRA” IS A PORTRAIT OF A 23-YEAR OLD YOUNG WOMAN. WHY WERE THE PROTESTS IN BRITAIN FOCUSED ON HARVEY’S WORK AND NOT NEARLY AS FOCUSED ON THE SHOCKING PRODUCTIONS OF DAMIEN HIRST, WHOSE USE OF ANIMAL REMAINS DID NOT STIR UP QUITE AS MUCH AN OUTRAGE AS ONE MIGHT IMAGINE?

THE REACTION SHOWN BY SOME WAS ABSOLUTELY EXTREME AND, BY NATURE, CRIMINAL. VANDALISM IS A CRIME. TO ENSURE THAT “MYRA” REMAINED AMONGST THE PAINTINGS AND CONCEPTUAL PIECES IN THE INSTALLATION, IT WAS REQUISITE THAT A PROTECTIVE STRUCTURE BE BUILT WHICH WOULD HOUSE THE LARGE PORTRAIT. THIS WAS MADE OF PERSPEX AND THEREFORE, IT PROTECTED THE WORK OF ART WHILE NOT CAUSING ITS VIEW ANY OBSTRUCTION.

WHY THE VIOLENT OPPOSITION? FOR STARTERS, MYRA HINDLEY, WHO DIED IN NOVEMBER, 2002 IS STILL CONSIDERED BY MANY AS THE MOST HATED WOMAN IN MODERN BRITISH HISTORY. NOTHING ABOUT HER FORMATIVE YEARS INDICATES IN ANY WAY THAT HER FATE IS THAT OF THE UTTERLY DESPISED, NOR THAT SHE WOULD SPEND 35 YEARS BEHIND BARS. AS A GIRL, SHE WAS SENSITIVE AND WAS CONSIDERED TO BE ONE OF MANCHESTER’S MOST RELIABLE BABY-SITTERS.
MYRA HINDLEY WAS IN DEMAND AS A BABY-SITTER. THE HIDEOUS IRONY IS THAT SHE WOULD BECOME AS HATED AND DEMONIZED AS SHE WAS FOR PLAYING MORE THAN A SMALL ROLE IN THE ABDUCTION, SADISTIC SEXUAL TORTURE INCLUDING RAPE, BRUTE PHYSICAL TORTURE AND ULTIMATE MURDER OF CHILDREN. THOUGH NOT LIKELY THAT HINDLEY WOULD EVER HAVE EVEN DREAMED UP SUCH MONSTROUS THOUGHTS PRIOR TO MEETING IAN BRADY, SHE DID FAR MORE THAN SIMPLY FANTASIZE ABOUT KILLING. SHE TOOK AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THE PLOTTING AND EXECUTION OF PARTICULARLY HORRIFIC MURDERS.

BRADY WAS ABOMINABLE AND HAD A PROFOUND INFLUENCE OVER HINDLEY, TO WHOM SHE LOST HER VIRGINITY AFTER HE HAD TAKEN HER ON THER FIRST DATE—A VERY TELLING DATE. IAN BRADY, OBSESSED WITH NAZI PROPAGANDA AND PHILOSOPHY, TOOK MYRA TO SEE JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG.

HE SOON MOVED INTO HER FLAT AND BEGAN TO TEACH HER GERMAN AND ASSIGNED HER BOOKS ON SEXUAL SADISM TO READ AS HOMEWORK. SHE DEVOURED De SADE. SHE CHANGED HER APPEARANCE MARKEDLY, MAKING HER HAIR PEROXIDE-BLOND AND DRESSING IN AN OVERTLY SEXUAL, “GERMANIC” STYLE.

SHE WAS OBSESSED WITH BRADY AND WOULD DO ANYTHING TO PLEASE HIM. HIS DESIRE TO RAPE AND MURDER CHILDREN SEEMS NOT TO HAVE CAUSED HER ANY DISTRESS. INSTEAD, SHE DEDICATED HER TIME TO ASSISTING IAN WITH THE FIRST FOUR MURDERS. SHE LURED A 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL, TWO 12-YEAR-OLD BOYS, AND A 16 YEAR-OLD FEMALE OFF TO THE SCENES OF THEIR INCREDIBLY PAINFUL MURDERS. IAN WAS SAVAGE BUT MYRA WAS JUST AS WICKED. SHE, TOO, PARTICIPATED IN BOTH THE MOLESTATION AND TORTURE OF THE VICTIMS. MYRA RECORDED THE GHASTLY CRIES OF 10-YEAR-OLD LESLIE ANN DOWNEY ON A REEL-TO-REEL. MYRA PHOTOGRAPHED THE JUVENILE VICTIMS IN A PORNOGRAPHIC MANNER.

MYRA AND IAN JOINTLY DUMPED THE BODIES AT SADDLEWORTH MOOR, AND RETURNED FREQUENTLY TO PICNIC ON THE SHALLOW GRAVES, EATING THEIR LUNCHES ABOVE THE WASTED BODIES OF CHILDREN WHO WOULD NEVER REACH ADULTHOOD BECAUSE OF THE MALICIOUSNESS OF THIS GHOULISH PAIR—ALL THE WHILE GRINNING AND SNAPPING PHOTOGRAPHS.

HER ACTS WERE SHOCKING, AND AT THE TIME OF THE MOORS MURDERS ARRESTS, THEY WERE WITHOUT PRECEDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. WHILE “JACK THE RIPPER” TERRORIZED VICTORIAN WHITECHAPEL SEVENTY-ODD YEARS BEFORE THE GRUESOME PAIR STARTED SNATCHING THEIR VICTIMS, HE DID NOT HARM CHILDREN. HE WAS UTTERLY EVIL, HACKING HIS LAST VICTIM’S FACE UP SO BADLY THAT WAS UNRECOGNIZABLE.

THE RECORDINGS MADE BY HINDLEY WERE DAMNING. EVEN THE MOST HARDENED COPS, JOURNALISTS AND SOLICITORS EXCUSED THEMSELVES FROM THE COURT ROOM TO WEEP IN PRIVATE OR VOMIT WHILE THE REEL-TO-REEL OF LESLIE ANN DOWNEY’S VOICE WAS PLAYED. SHE WAS CRYING AND PLEADING WITH HER “MUMMY” AND “DADDY.” MYRA IS CREDITED WITH ADDING THAT NEFARIOUS TOUCH– MAKING THE VICTIMS CALL SHE AND IAN “MUMMY” AND “DADDY.”

THE BRITISH OUTRAGE IS THUS, NEATLY EXPLAINED. TO EXPOUND UPON IT BY POINTING TO MYRA AS THE PERFECT, UNDENIABLE EXAMPLE OF AN “ANTI-MOTHER” IS EASILY POSITED AND DOES NOT REQUIRE A STRETCH OF THOUGHT. HER ACTIONS WERE DELIBERATE AND WERE THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF THE ACTIONS FOR WHICH SOCIETY GENERALLY LAUDS WOMEN– SUCH AS PATIENCE WITH CHILDREN AND A PREDILECTION TOWARDS ACTIVELY PROTECTING AND NURTURING CHILDREN.

HER CASE MARKED AN END OF INNOCENCE, ILLUMINATING THAT EGREGIOUS RIPS HAD BEEN TORN IN THE FABRIC CRAFTED AT SOCIETY’S LOOM. ALSO, THAT THESE TEARS WERE LIKELY TO WIDEN. IN SOME RESPECTS SHE WAS WORSE THAN BRADY WHO WAS NOT ONLY A BYPRODUCT OF A BORSTAL (TERM DESCRIBES NOW DEFUNCT FACILITIES FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS IN BRITAIN) HE HAD ENDURED A BLEAK CHILDHOOD FULL OF WANT IN THE MOST IMPOVERISHED SLUM OF GLASGOW. IAN WAS LIKELY A BORN SOCIOPATH. BUT MYRA, WHO HAD LOVED CHILDREN, SIMPLY CHANGED AND BECAME A CHILD SERIAL KILLER BECAUSE SHE WAS INSTRUCTED TO DO SO.

THE CASUAL LACK OF REMORSE CARRIED BY HINDLEY IS CHILLING. SHE PERPETUALLY HOUNDED THE LEGAL SYSTEM MAKING BIDS FOR EARLY RELEASE. HER THOUGHTS REVOLVED SOLELY AROUND HER OBJECTIVES, NOT ON WHAT SHE HAD DONE. SHE FORGED FRIENDSHIPS WITH INFLUENCIAL, WEALTHY MEN SUCH AS DAVID ASTOR AND LORD LONGFORD, WHO BOTH WERE SUPPORTERS OF HINDLEY’S PAROLE.

MYRA HINDLEY WAS NOT IDLE DURING HER INCARCERATION, SHE STUDIED AND MASTERED SEVERAL LANGUAGES– AND SHE ALSO EARNED HER B.A. IN HUMANITIES THROUGH THE “OPEN UNIVERSITY” OPERATED WITHIN U.K. CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTES. SHE CLAIMED TO HAVE ENDURED A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING AND SPENT HOURS IN PRAYER AND SPEAKING WITH HER PRIEST–

BUT SHE DID ALL OF THESE THINGS WHILE PLANNING AN ESCAPE WITH A LESBIAN GUARD WITH WHOM SHE HAD ENTERED A TORRID LOVE AFFAIR. THE GUARD DID 7 YEARS TIME FOR THE INDISCRETION AND LATER STATED THAT IT WAS PLANNED THAT ONCE THE COUPLE HAD BROKEN OUT (THE GUARD MANAGED TO HAVE A COPY OF THE MASTER KEY PRODUCED) THAT THEY WOULD OBTAIN FALSE ID’S, INCLUDING PASSPORTS AND FLY TO GUYANA OR SOME SUCH PLACE, AND INQUIRE ABOUT WORK AS “MISSIONARIES.”
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MYRA HINDLEY AND HER SUPPORTERS BROUGHT LAWSUITS CHALLENGING THE PAROLE BOARD’S REFUSAL TO FREE THE IGNOMINIOUS KILLER. AND WHILE SHE HAD ASSUMED A MATRONLY APPEARANCE AND PLAYED THE PART OF A CONTRITE SINNER WRACKED BY REMORSE, SHE WAS NOT WELL-LIKED BY OTHER INMATES AND IN THE LATE 1970′S A VICIOUS MOB OF WOMEN ATTACKED HER, CUT TING UP HER FACE WITH A SHIV SO BADLY A TEAM OF SURGEONS WAS REQUIRED TO RE-ASSEMBLE HER INFAMOUS VISAGE. SHE WAS NECESSARILY TRANSFERRED SEVERAL TIMES: FROM HOLLOWAY PRISON TO COOKHAM WOOD TO HIGHPOINT PRISON, WHERE SHE DIED.

AT HER FUNERAL, WHICH HER FAMILY AVOIDED, AN UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUAL LEFT A SIGN AT THE MORTUARY WHICH READ: “BURN IN HELL.”

IF HUMAN REACTIONS TO WORKS OF ART CAN FIND THEIR EXPRESSION IN ACTS OF UNCHAINED AND ENTHUSIASTIC RAGE, THEN ART WIELDS A POWER WHICH NOBODY FULLY FATHOMS. CONSIDER THE INK AND EGGS LOBBED AT MARCUS HARVEY’S PORTRAIT. ONE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THESE OBJECTS WERE BEING TOSSED AT A LIVE TARGET. BUT, IN TRUTH NOBODY THREW INK ON HINDLEY; IT WAS TOSSED ON HER PORTRAIT– THOUGH THE VANDALISM IS AN EERIE, EASY METAPHOR FOR THE FACIALLY DISFIGURING ATTACK SHE HAD SUFFERED IN PRISON.

ART, I REALIZE TOUCHES HUMANKIND ON EVERY POSSIBLE LEVEL. IT REACHES US EMOTIONALLY, VISCERALLY, INTELLECTUALLY AND EVEN SPIRITUALLY. YES, ART HAS AN IMPACT UPON THE SPIRITUAL LIVES OF MEN WHICH CANNOT BE READILY– OR AT ALL EASILY– DISCOUNTED. IF THIS WERE NOT THE CASE, WHY WOULD THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVE COMMISSIONED SOME OF THE MOST TRANSCENDENT AND INSPIRATIONAL WORKS FROM THE HANDS OF ARTISTS WHICH HISTORY HAS CANONIZED? ENTERING EVEN A MODEST CHAPEL, THE VISITOR WILL LIKELY BE CONFRONTED WITH SOMETHING RICHLY DESIGNED– A SCULPTED CRUCIFIXION, A BIBLICAL SCENE BOLDLY INTERPRETED IN A VIVID PALETTE AND STAINED UPON GLASS, THEN MADE LUMINESCENT BY AN INTENSE, BURNING AFTERNOON SKY.

WHEN I WAS TEN YEARS OLD I ENVIED CATHOLIC CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY HAD SUCH ELABORATE CHURCHES WHEREAS, I WAS DRAGGED LIKE A RAG DOLL TO AUSTERE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. OR TO SPIRITUALIST MEETING-PLACES WHICH WERE JUST AS UNIMPRESSIVE.

AGAIN, THE THEME RE-ASSERTS ITSELF. THE SPARTAN INTERIORS AND WHITE FACADES MY PURITAN ANCESTORS HAD INCORPORATED INTO THE DESIGNS OF THEIR PLACES OF WORSHIP SUMMARILY CONNOTE THE IDEALS THEY UPHELD AND TRIED TO SPREAD: THAT CLEANLINESS WAS NEXT TO GODLINESS, THAT THRIFT WAS A DIVINELY ASSIGNED TRAIT, THAT CATHOLICS WERE ENGAGING IN A WICKEDNESS BY WASTING FUNDS ON BUILDING ELABORATE HOUSES OF WORSHIP.

SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT DESTINATIONS FOR THE DISCIPLE OF ART ARE LOCATED WITHIN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES. ONE ONLY NEED THINK OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL.

ART AS A MAJOR THEME OF LIFE– ONE WHICH WE HEAR IN THE CONTENT OF CONVERSATION OR APPRECIATE FAR MORE SUBTLY AS WE WALK NOT THROUGH A MUSEUM, BUT DOWNTOWN. PAYING ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS PLACED ON THE OLD, BRICK BUILDINGS. LOOK CLOSELY, EVEN THE TENEMENTS DISPLAY VISIBLE ARCHITECTURAL FLOURISHES: ELEGANT PEDIMENTS ABOVE CRUMBLING DOORWAYS, AND SUCH. IT IS A RARE THING, NOWADAYS, TO GET TOGETHER WITH A FRIEND AND VISIT A MUSEUM. NOT RARE FOR ALL, BUT RARE FOR MOST. HOWEVER, WE INADVERTENTLY DISCUSS ART AND TO ADD TO THE ACCIDENTAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECT ENTERING CONVERSATION– WE DO SO WITHOUT CONSCIOUSLY VIEWING ART.

SINCE MAN IS SO VISUAL A BEING, HE CONSTANTLY SURVEYS HIS ENVIRONS. AS WELL, SINCE MAN IS SO VERBAL A BEING, HE IS COMPELLED TO CHATTER ABOUT WHAT HIS EYES– WHILE SCANNING ABOUT– HAVE DETECTED.

IS THERE SOMETHING UGLY FOR HIM TO POINT OUT AND REMARK UPON? OR, HAS SOMETHING LOVELY CAUGHT HIS EYE AND HE NEED BRING THIS SCRAP OF BEAUTY TO THE FOREFRONT OF CONVERSATION AND THUS, CONSCIOUSNESS BECAUSE HE IS IN THE COMPANY OF A MISERABLE GROUP, OR WITH A WOMAN HE DESPERATELY DESIRES TO IMPRESS WITH A VISUALLY APPEALING IMAGE IN HOPES THAT SHE WILL ASSOCIATE SUCH AN EASILY ACQUIRED SENSE OF CONTENTMENT WITH HE– HER MEMORY OF HIM FOREVER INTERTWINED WITH THE DAZZLING, MIDNIGHT SKY, SMEARED BY COUNTLESS AND UNUSUALLY BRIGHT STARS ON A CLEAR NIGHT SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE DENVER?

MY MOTHER ONCE TOLD ME THAT MY FATHER WON HER HEART, OR AT LEAST HER ATTENTION, BY TELLING HER THAT SHE HAD ” THE FACE OF A BOTTICELLI ANGEL.”

DECISIONS ARE INFLUENCED BY ART ON A DAILY BASIS; SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE IS AN EVIDENT DEMISE IN THE NATIONAL APPRECIATION FOR ARTISTRY AND CLEVER SKILL… DO NOT THINK FOR AN INSTANT THAT IT HAS VANISHED AND THAT WE AREN’T BEING PRODDED, GOADED AND TENDED BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE AN INTRINSIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE POWER INHERENT IN ART IS FAR FROM SUPERFICIAL. THE PROBLEM HERE IS THAT THESE TYPES ARE MAINLY EMPLOYED IN ADVERTISING. THERE IS NOTHING ESSENTIALLY TERRIBLE IN THAT. WHAT IS TERRIBLE IS THAT A FAMOUS PORTRAIT OF OUR NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT– AN IMAGE WITH WHICH WE ARE ALL FAMILIAR, WHICH I THINK IS CALLED “HOPE”– HAS BROUGHT ATTENTION TO THE ARTIST BUT I AM UNABLE TO RECALL OR WRITE HIS NAME. THAT IMAGE IS, IN MY OPINION, ONE WHICH WILL BE AS HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT AS THE GILBERT STUART PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON OR OF THE HAUNTING PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN DURING THE AMERICAN DEPRESSION BY DOROTHEA LANGE WHICH MADE AN UNKNOWN, IMPOVERISHED WOMAN AN IMMORTAL ICON OF STRENGTH. NAMELESS, BUT FAMOUS, SHE IS REFERRED TO AS “THE DUST BOWL MADONNA.”

WE ARE NOT FOCUSED ON ART IN ANY DIRECT MANNER. EVERYTHING IS PERIPHERAL AND THIS IS THE WAY LITERATURE AND THE VISUAL ARTS ENTER OUR LIVES, EVER INCREASINGLY– FROM THE SIDE. RECALLING THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN AMERICAN AND GERMAN ART OF ROUGHLY THE SAME ERA, THE IDEA OF POWER REEMERGES WITH GREAT FORCE. WE UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF ART– OR THE POWER OF ART– WHEN WE REMEMBER THE PROFOUND EFFECT NAZI PROPAGANDA EXERTED. ALONGSIDE RADIO BROADCASTS AND HITLERS’ DELIRIUM-CAUSING PUBLIC SPEAKING, PROPAGANDIST ART AIDED IN THE CREATION OF THE NAZI GERMAN ZEITGEIST.

WHO IS THE LAST FAMOUS AMERICAN POET YOU CAN NAME? TRUE,” FAMOUS POET” IS AN OXYMORON NOWADAYS, BUT IT WAS NOT ALWAYS LIKE THIS. THINK ABOUT IT. I ASSUME THAT MOST PEOPLE WOULD SAY ROBERT FROST; MAYBE A HANDFUL WOULD SAY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, OTHERS WILL POINT TO THE EXAMPLE OF PLATH, SOME TO ANNE SEXTON.

FROST IS THE BEST ANSWER, HE DID HAVE TRUE FAME, AND HIS NAME STILL A HOUSEHOLD WORD. MILLAY MAY BE THE NEXT BEST ANSWER. SHE HAD AN ENORMOUS FAME (ONE TO WHICH A MODERN POET WOULD NOT DARE TO ASPIRE) BUT HER FAME PROCEEDED THAT OF FROST, AND HER LEGACY IS TWISTED. MANY THINK SHE WAS SOME UPTIGHT PRUDE, WHEN HER BIOGRAPHY CLEARLY PROVES SHE WAS SEXUALLY RAPACIOUS AND BISEXUAL IN AN ERA WHEN THE REMAINING VICTORIAN MORALS WOULD HAVE CONDEMNED THAT BEHAVIOR AS A GRAVE SIN. MILLAY WAS ADDICTED TO A PLETHORA OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL—TRAGIC ADDICTIONS INCONGRUOUS WITH THE IDENTITY OF A “PRUDE.”

SYLVIA PLATH GAINED THE MAJORITY OF HER FAME AFTER TAKING HER OWN LIFE AT THE DAWN OF THE 1960′S… AND WHILE ANNE SEXTON ALSO TOOK HER OWN LIFE IN 1974 SHE HAD ALREADY WON A PECULIAR FAME. SEXTON WAS A GLAMOROUS WASP AND FORMER MODEL WHOSE STATUESQUE GOOD LOOKS, INTRIGUING PHYSIOGNOMY AND SEXUALITY MADE HER APPEAL RATHER BROAD. PERSONALLY, I WOULD NAME HER AS THE LAST OF THE FAMOUS POETS, FOR SHE WAS A SERIOUS WRITER, DISCIPLINED AND INTENT ON PERFECTION. SHE WAS ALSO ABLE TO SELL OUT VENUES AND PEOPLE BOUGHT HER BOOKS.HER BOLD ADMISSION OF MENTAL ILLNESS CAUSED PUBLIC INTEREST IN SEXTON TO EXPLODE. BUT SHE COULD TRULY MOVE A READER WITH A PIECE WRITTEN IN FORM. CONSIDER “HER KIND” AND ITS SCHEME– WHICH DOES NOT HAMPER THE ADROIT COMMINGLING OF THE SUB TEXTUAL SENTIMENTS.

YET, SEXTON’S CASE, ONE OF THE FINEST AMERICAN WOMEN OF LETTERS WAS EVENTUALLY SO FRACTURED AND BRUISED BY MENTAL ILLNESS AND CHRONIC ALCOHOLISM THAT SHE, LIKE SYLVIA PLATH, CAPITULATED TO A TERRIBLE WHIM. (SUICIDE WAS A MAJOR LIFE THEME FOR SEXTON) ON A PLACID AFTERNOON, SHE CLIMBED INTO HER VEHICLE AND TURNED THE MOTOR, WAITING FOR DEATH AS CARBON MONOXIDE FLOODED THE CAR’S INTERIOR.

THERE ARE MANY ARTISTS WHO ARE NOT ILL, ADDICTED OR SUICIDAL. BUT, ART IS A HUMAN PRODUCTION AND WILL ADDRESS HUMAN EMOTIONS AND HUMAN PROBLEMS. SOME ART MUST GIVE THE GENERAL POPULATION AN IDEA OF WHAT MADNESS IS– AND WERE IT NOT FOR THE LEVEL OF GENIUS IN PEOPLE SUCH AS PLATH OR HEMINGWAY, ONE COULD ASSUME THEY WOULD HAVE HAD NOTHING TO OCCUPY THEMSELVES WITH AND THEREFORE MAY HAVE COMMITTED SUICIDE MUCH EARLIER. THE WORLD WOULD NOT MISS THE CONTRIBUTIONS THEY HAD MADE– THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN CREATED. IMAGINE THE ROBBERY THAT WOULD REPRESENT. UGLINESS AND EMOTIONAL TURMOIL MUST BE ILLUSTRATED, NOT BURIED, LOCKED AWAY OR CENSURED.

ART AND THE NOTION OF CENSURE DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER. THERE IS NO END TO ART. IT CAN BE FOUND AND APPRECIATED IN UNLIKELY PLACES. HOWEVER, IF A GALLERY OR A MUSEUM WITH A BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND AN ACTING CURATOR DECIDES TO ALLOW AN INSTALLATION OF AN EXHIBITION WHICH THEY ALREADY UNDERSTAND MAY, AT VERY LEAST, CAUSE CONTROVERSY, THE INSTITUTION IS OPERATING WITH ITS AUTONOMY AND AUTHORITY INTACT. THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR GREEN-LIGHTING THE SHOWING OF THE “SENSATION” EXHIBITION IN NYC WERE, I ASSUME WITH CONFIDENCE, FAR BETTER EDUCATED IN TERMS OF ART AND FAR BETTER SUITED TO JUDGE IT AS WORTHY OR NOT. THEY FELT IT WAS WORTH SHOWING AND, WHILE THE NAME “SENSATION” MAY CONVEY THAT THERE EXISTED A PURPOSEFUL DESIRE TO IRRITATE THE SENSIBILITIES OR SHOCK THE RELIGIOUS FEELINGS OF THAT CITY’S MAYOR; THIS IS UNLIKELY IN THE EXTREME.

BRITISH REACTIONS WERE VOCAL AND LOUD OR PHYSICAL. THE REACTION IN THE UNITED STATES WAS FOR A POLITICIAN TO TOSS ABOUT WORDS WHICH REMINDED ONE OF “MORALITY,” SUCH AS “OBSCENE,” AND TO THEN DISCONTINUE FUNDING. I THINK I FAVOR THE BRITISH REACTION. I SHOULD CLARIFY THAT: I DO NOT FAVOR THE VANDALISM AND I AM QUITE ANNOYED WITH THE REFUSAL OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC TO STOP, REALIZE THAT THE PORTRAIT WAS NOT INTENDED AS A CELEBRATION OF MYRA HINDLEY OR HER SICKENING CRIMES. WHAT I DO FAVOR IS THAT (ASIDE FROM THE VANDALISM) PEOPLE IN ENGLAND PROTESTED AND DEMONSTRATED.THEY SHOWED THEIR DISSATISFACTION AND THEY SHOWED THEIR DISAPPROVAL. MOST IMPORTANTLY, ENGLISH AUTHORITIES NEVER BECAME PRESUMPTUOUS ENOUGH TO STEP INTO THE PICTURE IN ORDER TO TELL THE CITIZENS WHAT ART WAS AND WHETHER OR NOT THEIR RIGHT TO VIEW IT WAS THEIR OWN.

PERHAPS SOME OF THE WORKS WERE DISGUSTING. IN FACT, I FOUND CERTAIN PIECES TO BE UPSETTING. YET, I DO NOT THINK IT SHOULD BE THE PROVINCE OF POLITICIANS TO TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT I CAN VIEW AN ART SHOW WHICH MAY CAUSE MY NERVES SOME DEGREE OF UPSET. THE JUSTIFICATION THAT SINCE THE MONIES USED TO FINANCE THE NYC SHOW WERE PUBLIC– THEREFORE COLLECTED FROM TAXPAYERS– DOES NOT WORK FOR ME. I AM UNSURE WHY IT WOULD SATISFY ANYBODY. TAXPAYERS HAVE SO LITTLE TO SAY WHEN IT COMES TO THE MANNER IN WHICH THEIR MONEY IS SPENT THAT THEY ARE UTTER MUTES; FOR
ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES.WARFARE ALSO CAUSES CONTROVERSY, AND ALSO CAUSES DEATHS, MULTIPLE DEATHS.

YET, OFF GO THE MONIES TO ENSURE THE NATION REMAIN EMBROILED IN PROBLEMS WHICH ARE AS OLD AS CIVILIZATION AND WHICH CAN NOT POSSIBLY BENEFIT FROM THE MEDDLING OF ANY WEALTHY WESTERN NATION. MONEY IS TOO ROUTINELY SPENT WASTEFULLY. FUNDING FOR THE ARTS IS SCANT, AND TO USE “SENSATION” AS A REASON TO FUNNEL TAX DOLLARS IN ANOTHER DIRECTION IS HAREBRAINED. CHILDREN NEED ART AND NEED TO CULTIVATE AN UNDERSTANDING AND RELATIONSHIP THEREOF. I HAVE ALREADY WRITTEN, ART TOUCHES MANKIND ON THE VISCERAL, EMOTIONAL, INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL LEVELS. THAT IS AMAZING, IT IS ALSO FACT. NOT EVEN AN ATHEIST CAN DENY THAT THERE IS A SPIRITUAL LEVEL OR COMPONENT IN MANKIND. HE MAY ATTRIBUTE THE OVERWHELMING SENSATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SPIRITUAL TO A BIO-CHEMICAL RESPONSE. HOWEVER, THE FACT REMAINS THAT SUCH EXPERIENCES ARE TRANSCENDENT, BLISSFUL AND OFTEN LIFE-ALTERING IN THE VERY BEST OF WAYS. ART CAN CAUSE THIS.

WITHOUT THE CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS, ARGUABLY THE MOST POWERFUL AND PERVASIVE CREATION OUR RACE IS CAPABLE OF CREATING– WHAT CHANCE DOES A CHILD HAVE AS HE ENTERS ADULTHOOD? POLITICIANS SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN ATTEMPTING TO DEFINE OR CENSURE ART. GRAPHIC SEXUAL IMAGERY MAY BE CATEGORIZED AS SUCH AND RULES CONCERNING AGE MAY BE UPHELD, I SEE NO HARM THERE. SHUTTING DOWN MUSEUMS, EXHIBITIONS AND REMOVING FUNDS NECESSARY FOR MUSEUMS TO OPERATE IS A LOWDOWN MISDEED EXECUTED BY PEOPLE WHO LACK EVEN A MODICUM OF THE RAMIFICATIONS SUCH ACTIONS SHALL UNLEASH.

WHAT IS A NON-LINEAR APPROACH TO VIEWING ONE’S LIFE, ANYHOW?

GENERALLY, WE TEND TO LOOK AT OUR LIVES IN A VERY LINEAR MANNER, MEANING THAT WE SEE OUR LIVES BEGINNING AT POINT A. (BIRTH) AND ENDING AT POINT B. (DEATH)… EXAMINING OUR LIVES AS THOUGH THEY WERE CIRCULAR— THINK OF A SNAKE BITING ITS OWN TAIL— IS CERTAINLY AN ATYPICAL EXAMPLE OF HOW ONE MIGHT SEE HIS OR HER OWN LIFE. RATHER THAN THERE BEING AN ENDING AN A BEGINNING, THIS EXAMPLE GRANTS A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE. THIS PERSPECTIVE LETS US SEE OURSELVESS “RETURNING” TO OUR ROOTS WHEN WE DIE. WHAT IS THE BENEFIT IN THIS?

There would be little benefit in viewing our lives as circles were we not able to comprehend the notion that birth and death are so intimately related. The benefit in taking this vantage point is that when we appreciate the closeness of the two events— birth and death— we see that as we approach our own mortality, we think very intently upon what “gave” us our life to begin with. Is it breath alone which is responsible for animating the body? Is it the failure to breathe which causes us to cave-in to our own mortality and hence, to die? We can go further, and ask where each unique human life, or incarnation, actually does have its genesis. However, this opens another can of worms, altogether. This one tied to politics; particularly the politics aligned with how individuals or states choose to interpret the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Roe v. Wade.

I am not writing this blog to stir up any sort of political debate revolving around ideas pertaining to the “moment” when an individual human life begins. Rather, I am asking the reader to attempt to grasp a new idea about the nature of life. Specifically, I am attempting to arouse the reader into a new, perhaps unusual, way of thinking about life. It has less to do with the concept of life after death than a blog written by a medium would generally be assumed to convey. In fact, it has nothing to do with any such concept. So why, then, am I writing this? What am I really asking the reader to do?

The answer is simple. I am writing this short blog in order to get people to think about life and death in a fashion other than that with which they may already, or easily, understand. I am writing this in order to exhort the reader to entertain a different, perhaps even (initially) perplexing, view on the nature of life and death.

I teach various workshops on sundry psychic, or paranormal, themes. In doing so, I have discovered that it is best to first shake up the thinking of the student. I have found that getting the seeker to think “outside of the box” is often the first step it takes to get some students to “see” with a new set of eyes— to “hear” with a new pair of ears. Sometimes I have a class look at an object or a group of objects, such as a pile of shoes, and sketch these in a way in which they don’t ordinarily see. In other words, I will instruct them to sketch the shadows inherent in whichever scene they are presented with. (I am not the originator of this technique and do not claim to be). The point is that if a student is told to draw a pile of shoes only by sketching the shadows cast by the shoes, he may very well wind up with a rendering which looks remarkably similar to a drawing of the same pile of shoes composed by a student who was instructed to draw the shoes the way most would ordinarily do so— by paying heed to the lines of the shoes and replicating these with pencil strokes.

The student who draws the shadows arrives at a similar result of the same assembled objects but does so by studying that which the eye is not trained to notice first. The student who draws the shadows learns that seeing in a more unconventional way is thus just as reliable a method of seeing that which lies before us as is the method more conventional. Except, he sees that something as subtle and unassuming as the darkness of shadow is just as important to note as are the boldest lines most readily appreciated by the human eye.

Allowing any person wishing to broaden his or her psychic abilities an opportunity to examine any given idea in a new or less-likely to be appreciated manner is often the very first step in breaking down the sturdy ideas which prevent us from seeing with our sixth sense. Whether these strong notions came from lessons we learned at school or at home is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we begin to attempt to think about things in ways which challenge the methods with which we currently “see” our environs.

So, imagine your life as having no beginning and no end. Imagine it not as a line which is drawn between birth and death. Imagine it as a circle. Get creative, envision it as a rectangle— but know why you decide to see it the way you do. This is of great importance: for knowing why we imagine things the way we do is one of the great keys we may utilize to unlock further doors down the hallway, as we progress on our way towards enlightenment and understanding of the subtle energies which surround us— which are far from subtle, anyways.

BE WELL,

Jeffrey Justice

BLOG in TWO PARTS:

1. All about my curious nickname, “The Mayflower Medium.”

2. An old family scandal related to “The Mayflower Madam”… sort of.

So— I have been given a new aka and I don’t dislike it. Let me explain this: Somebody I had not heard from in over a decade found me online and noticed that an internet search displayed results by my name indicating I am called “The Mayflower Medium.” This was funny, and I had to explain what it was all about. So, now I am doing that all over again—this time, however, I am writing to inform blog readers as to how this nickname was given me. Yes, it was given. I have had enough to do to keep people aware of my identity without adding a confusing alias).

Who gave me This Name?

A friend of mine assigned me the nickname sometime last summer, as I was riding the subway through Boston to make it to The Museum of Fine Arts. It was spoken in jest and I forgot about it within moments. However, my friend thought he was awfully clever and added the words “Mayflower Medium” as a suffix to my name in a number of emails. Some thought it funny enough to use incessantly. Though this had its roots in humor and in a campy cultural scandal, there remains the fact that I had ancestors on The Mayflower, which adds an ingredient of truth to this jumbled equation. Because of that authentic component, and because I did not find the chiding use of this nickname to be abrasive, I am keeping it as a proper sobriquet. In other words, I am being a good sport and allowing the moniker as I am not promoting it, nor upset with it. In other words, call me Jeffrey Justice “The Mayflower Medium.” Or don’t—it’s all fine.

Interesting Fact:

“The Mayflower Madam” came first!

Who was the woman known to so many as “The Mayflower Madam? She was a socialite who made a big stir when she was busted for running an escort service during the 1980’s. She was known in the tabloid press (and subsequently to the entire nation) as “The Mayflower Madam.” Her actual name is Sydney Biddle Barrows. After the legal trouble and media storm it generated slowly subsided, she went on to author a few books and was the subject of a biopic in which she was played by Candace Bergen. Below is information from the Wikipedia article titled Sydney Biddle Barrows (Information retrieved from said page on 13 January, 2009):

“Sydney Biddle Barrows (born January 14, 1952), known as the Mayflower Madam, was a modern American madam. After her escort service was exposed and disbanded, she gained worldwide notoriety, in part because she was part of the upper-class Biddle family of Philadelphia and is a Mayflower descendant. During her years as a madam, she used the alias Sheila Devin.”

A Century-Old Family Scandal which happened at the Biddle Home

What do I have in common with Sydney Biddle Barrows? I don’t run a brothel. I am pretty sure she is not working as a medium. We both have similar genealogies but she grew up with a sterling spoon in her mouth while I had a comfortable—though far from rich—upbringing.

Actually, there is an unusual connection between the Biddle Family and a branch of my family which had hailed from New York State. Their surname was Schufeldt— my spelling may not be 100% accurate. The Schufeldt Family spent their summers in the Point Shore neighborhood of Amesbury, Massachusetts—as guests of the Biddle Family who owned a large mansion which sat opposite the wide, flat Merrimack River. This home still stands today, its tall, mute walls plastered with stucco. A sign affixed to the building’s front wall declares that it is the Biddle Home and was built circa 1900. If these Biddles were related to Sydney Biddle Barrows I would not be surprised. This “Old Money” family is well-established in the United States and therefore, a few branches of the wealthy Biddle Family must be ensconced in a number of cities. I cannot tell you for certain that there exists a blood tie between Sydney Biddle Barrows and the Biddle Family my ancestors were close with because I have no time to sleuth around for proof. Besides, there is a far more intriguing story concerning events which took place at the Point Shore summer home of the Biddle Family: This concerns an old family scandal.

I know about a family scandal which started at the Biddle Home in Amesbury sometime around the year 1900. I heard this tragedy so many times as a child—yet it seems like a fantastic tale of star-crossed lovers written for the stage. Far from being a tale of love gone wrong penned for the stage, it was an actual course of events.

Mr. and Mrs. Schufeldt were dear friends of these Biddles, and were with them every summer, to my knowledge, for several consecutive years. Each year the Biddle Family had the Schufeldts as guests to their summer home, they would also bring their reputedly shy daughter along. She was called Hallie Schufeldt. One summer, Hallie fell in love with a young man she met at the estate. She may have been 19 or 20 years old. She may have thought that fate was nothing over which to worry—but, fate was to be a twisted and cruel influence on her life.

As she blossomed into a young woman, she had grown attractive enough to gain the attention of a young man who worked for the Biddle family. He was there every day or nearly as often since the nature of his work was to make deliveries to the Biddle Home. It isn’t difficult to imagine a young, uncultivated man from New Hampshire falling in love with a reserved, flirtatious heiress from New York. Questions arose regarding the possibility of this “delivery boy” having eyes for Hallie’s inheritance. These questions would be answered by brutal fate; they were apparently void of substance.

Hallie, assumedly intoxicated by emotions of love and sexual arousal, was soon speaking of marriage. However, Mr. Schufeldt found his daughter’s choice of suitor repulsive. He considered the boy too young, too unlettered, and too poor to make his daughter a suitable husband. Perhaps the younger man also presented some unspoken threat to the rigid control and authority he lorded over his daughter. I can imagine her father being vexed and angry when he faced a new reality in which a sturdy, handsome youth was the male who had the most “power” over his daughter—a power which was based in his daughter’s sexuality.

Hallie was presented an ultimatum by her father and told to stop seeing the delivery man. Rather than do as she was told, she became indignant and ignored her father’s edict. Instead, she began boldly relating her determination to marry the man whom her father detested. The intensity of emotion her uncharacteristic behavior ignited within her father was one which would not die with him. Rather, it would exert a tragic impression on several lives. He next told his daughter that she would be allowed to marry the man she loved. However, if she did, she would be cut out of the family completely and for the duration of her life. This meant that she would not be able to claim her share of the impressive material wealth the family owned. She would also be losing all contact with her father, mother and other relations—and have no support from them in any way.

The Schufeldts were a wealthy, powerful family and Hallie was a naïve young woman— the threats her father made when she announced her plans to marry against his wishes should have stopped the marriage. In 1900, women were only able to work at a scant number of occupations, none of which would have brought in more than a pittance. These jobs were largely in mills and factories. They were, by nature, not genteel occupations. Miss Schufeldt was accustomed to elegant living and not accustomed to doing any sort of labor. There were maids and other servants who took care of everything which Hallie owned, needed or used. This young woman was so poorly equipped to live a life detached from her family and from its money that I marvel at her persistence and determination. She remained resolute in her decision to marry the man she first met while flirting on the sun-dappled lawn of the Biddle estate.

The delivery man she fell in love with became the man she married. This man was the grandfather of my mother’s father. After she became Mrs. Hallie Somers, she saw her old way of life vanish into memories which were so unrelated to her new life that they must have seemed like dimly-understood dreams which concerned the wealthy classes. Effectively disowned by her family, she rapidly left the opulence of her former home for the rotten charm of a tumbledown shack complete with dirt floors. While she acclimated to her new home, she certainly also started to appreciate the disintegration of the profound love which led her to a life of pained poverty… Her new husband’s dependence upon alcohol worsened daily, becoming a pathological disorder which generated passionate shouting matches and also led to his perpetual state of unemployment.

I sometimes reflect on that story. Lately, I see beneath the surface theme of “Riches to Rags,” “Love is the Pastime of Fools,” etc. The subtext is fluid and moving with contrasting currents. The notion that obedience to family trumps romantic love is there. So is the belief that staying determined to our personal goals is paramount. Varieties of love, such as that a parent feels compared to that which a smitten teenager knows are explored, yes. It is the abuse of love and allegiance which I am focused on, presently. There is usually no excuse for stopping all communications with a child, a lover—a friend.

Truly Yours,

Jeffrey Justice

Words on Death and Dying from a Spirit Medium

Our ideas about death and dying are jumbles of conjecture based– sometimes loosely, other times firmly– upon religious sentiment, religious dogma, scientific fact, personal fears and personal experience. Thus, a Catholic woman may spend hours praying for the soul of her deceased son. Meantime, a dyed-in-the-wool man of science may refute the possibility of “life after death” and label any belief system which posits or enforces an understanding of the soul as an immortal and essential component of a living person a hollow institution propagating a fiction. The questions concerning the concept of life after life are many. They are as myriad as are the notions people hold concerning the identity of God.

What makes— and keeps— mankind so riveted to this particular concept? What drives human beings to continue to seek out answers for questions pertinent to the theme of mortality? What factors, other than a base fear of extinction with the ebb of life perpetuate this fascination with death? I ask the reader to remove a fear of damnation as such a factor. The terror which some hold regarding damnation and other, milder forms of perdition is a fear which obstructs ones view at the simple question. I am not attempting to state that such fears are not valid, nor am I daring to assault the religious sensibilities of those who have taken to heart such ideas. I do, however, want very much to escape the confines of this rigid thinking; at least while examining this topic. Otherwise, there is no way to properly explore what peculiar mystique “end of life” issues pose to members of the global population who do not believe in Hell.

Who has the right to talk about death? Rhetorically speaking, I am asking you to answer this question within your own mind. Is this subject really the province of the clergy? Or is it a topic best left to science? Should scientists be leading all serious discussions about death?

My personal take on that question is that nobody has exclusive authority when it comes to the exploration of morbidity in serious conversations. This is a matter of equal importance to clergy men and physicians, chemists and mystics. When we talk about death, I believe that the most unlettered person may offer a pearl of wisdom culled from personal experience which may far outweigh the collective value which one hundred profoundly educated men may posit regarding this subject matter. These men may be as studied and familiar with the most intriguing and contemporary data on death, or “Near Death Experiences” as possible. Yet, the experience of a middle-aged woman from Angola who has experienced her own brush with death may move and inform those who listen to her story in powerful ways which speak to the heart.

My own opinion contends that human beings are obsessed with the concept of death because we are the vainest of all species. We are the only animal which actively seeks to build a reputation during life; which is fundamental ingredient for the establishment of a legacy after bodily death. We spend an inordinate amount of time—while still very much alive—concerning ourselves with notions which revolve around legacy. We spend far too much time planning for the endurance of our unique identities. The idea that our personality and beliefs will die with the body is a major motivating force operating behind the fixation which death is for so many people.

Some people do not seem to acquiesce to the idea that death will efface the meaning or value of the life they have industriously created. Instead, they actively work at creating a legacy; insistent that their names will not only be remembered after death, but spoken in centuries yet to come. This seems like a wasteful pre-occupation when I wonder to myself: How many Ciceros and Aristotles are currently walking about, talking, thinking and working? Few names from the Ancient World retain their cache or hold their value.

The grand majority of men and women now living will be remembered by a generation or two of family subsequent to their passing from this mortal realm. This plain fact does little to prevent the enormous amount of planning certain individuals perform while living regarding funerals and memorial services. Nor does it slow the enthusiasm some exhibit when it comes to the design of headstones and monuments; demonstrating a demand that they will not, must not be forgotten.

Yet, they will be forgotten. No matter how grand the headstone or family crypt, the personalities beneath, or within, will only be vaguely hinted at to those who pass by these monuments in future centuries.

The need to be remembered and fear of being forgotten are readily evidenced when walking in an old cemetery. The stones stand in silence, some remain utterly mute as the elements have worn away words, names, and dates.

The fear which generates the desire to live on is accompanied by others. I further believe that human beings are so habituated to earthly pleasures and pains that death is a terrifying concern. Many persist in their belief that death is the ultimate and most final finish to every human life. Furthermore, such people also believe that there is nothing afterwards. They maintain a belief that once they have died, they could not possibly experience any sensation, not joy, not sorrow. These people’s eyes are sealed to the idea that the physical world is ephemeral and the spiritual is finite. These folks are likely to call such belief the stuff of fantasy. Some may go so far as to label it delusional thinking.

The notion that spiritual matter is more lasting and sturdy than is the matter we can palpate and know through our five senses puzzles and upsets certain people. This is no wonder, as we are taught by so many influences that the physical, the tangible, is real. We are correspondingly educated to believe that those things which are not capable of being experienced through our senses are fictitious. There are others who accept the idea that there is a world around us made of spiritual tissue, but that which is of that world is weaker by nature than is the temporal world.

Many people do believe that spiritual beings are frail and ephemeral by nature. A ghost, such a person may rationalize, is nearly always explained as being flimsy and translucent. Therefore, spirit matter is not hearty or sturdy.

As a medium, my own philosophy concerning this topic is the polar opposite of the sentiment I just explained. I am quite sure that the things we experience on earth, things composed of “hard matter” are the objects which will lose their form and design most rapidly. Spiritual material is something I liken to a fabric, which is enduring and indestructible. Steel and stone may seem more durable than cloth, but I am writing about a cloth we cannot readily see. We may, however, examine the physical history of our planet and know that mountain ranges rise and fall; oceans and lakes change form or evaporate.

I fear more for the loss of a favorite shirt far more than I fear for the loss of my life. I think of it as a folly to waste time entertaining anxieties about losing something which is not an article to be lost. I understand that this is not the way most people approach the concept. I realize that some would say I was guilty of disrespecting the gift which life is. That is not my intent, and my words are meant to soothe the minds of those whose lives are compromised by the fear of death.

Whether one believes his identity will cease at death, or believes that he can cheat death by becoming a subject of conversation and fame, he still has not made peace with the fact that it is approaching in a natural way. He is running and phobic, ruled by a vile sort of trepidation which is deeply instilled within the mind.

Rather than run (demonstrating the intense panic some feel when they contemplate death and dying) I remain quite static and hopefully this demonstrates the peace I feel regarding my own mortality. To stay still, not showing a fear of death seems an evasive stance to achieve. Of course, I too have qualms about death. My own fears are centered upon how death will come— I do not wish to die in pain. I fear suffering at death, but I do not fear death.

Our anxieties about death have much to do with our being quite largely left in a dim and dark space. Our apprehensions are allowed to expand in that same environment, where the unknown is the best catalyst for the existence, growth and vitality of fear. If fear, unchecked, clogs the mind with frightening or futile thoughts—then death will quite easily seem like the most terrifying reality. Since bodily death is an inescapable reality for all women and for all men, then it is no marvel that human thoughts often revolve around death.

Many people live for long periods of time throughout which they never give death much thought. This is rarely a perpetual condition. Unless an individual is cut down in his prime, his thoughts will eventually become filled with questions about death. This happens quite naturally when people age and see friends and family members capitulate to their own mortality. Or it happens when a healthy person receives a diagnosis for a terminal illness from a health care provider. No person is able to walk through life and never see, hear, touch— or be touched by— death.

Death looms over the beds of the ill. Death checks his wristwatch when the elderly awaken. Death may well be appreciated to be present at the birth of each new child.

For many people, death is darkness. Death is a “Black Angel” a ghost of terror, a “Grim Reaper. But is he really? Is this sort of characterization appropriate— or is it simply a portrait painted by the hand of a race of people whose dread of death is heavy, dismal and absolute?

I am asked by many people to offer them my own opinions on death. I am asked chronically about death. People seem to feel at home discussing death with me. Sometimes individuals appear as comfortable discussing this concept with me as they might be when speaking to a minister. I am always humbled by this. Due to the serious nature of the questions I am asked, I have made it a goal to examine the myriad customs developed around the globe at various times in history.

Death is a rather unusual concept and reality to be questioned about so frequently. However, since my work does have much to do with death, I fully expect to be asked questions about death. In truth, I welcome these questions as they allow me a solid opportunity to allay the apprehensions and anxieties with which people grapple. Still, there is nothing I can tell anybody about death which has not already been written about, broadcast, gossiped over or filmed. Again, the public interest in this topic is vast, and saturates all manner of human thoughts and productions. If one need question that death saturates human thinking to the point it manifests in human creation, one need only visit any museum which houses fine arts, read any major sacred text or note the presence of the Obituaries printed in most newspapers. Or simply recall the popularity of the critically lauded cable television series Six Feet Under.

If I have devitalized my own authority by proclaiming the truth: That I have no more to say on this matter other than reiterating the sentiments of others— I urge you to finish reading this blog. I may not be able to relate something absolutely ground breaking, I can explain my unique comprehension of this subject because of the manner in which I relate to death. I am a spirit medium; I have seen “proof” which validates my lack of timidity concerning death.

I offer with indomitable zest my many experiences as a medium and as a person who has been through his own Near Death Experience as the solid foundation for the beliefs I hold concerning this subject. They are not based on an empty faith. The garment of my belief is not simple tradition I learned by rote in some Sunday school class. Religion, however, did play an important role in the evolution of thought and beliefs I uphold and now am in the process of disseminating. My own background in the religion of Spiritualism bolstered the strong ideas about death I do possess.

I suppose I would have accepted all of this on my own subsequent to the first time I had to chafe against death. I had my first Near Death Experience during a debilitating bout of encephalitis at age nine. I do not downplay the family association with this religion, because it assuaged all of the fears which began to grow in my young mind as I recovered. Not only did the spiritual vantage point of this faith assuage my concerns about death– It annihilated them.

I can tell you emphatically that there is no “death.” There is no death as perceived by most— there is no cease to the soul, or its smile– or the spark beneath it. Whatever lights that up, whatever animates the spirit is a material which is so utterly indestructible, so permanent, that it survives ultimately and forever. The concept of death as a period at the end of a sentence is a terrible folly. The fear which that concept generates is a wicked delusion, set upon others by those who regard it as bankable currency. In reality, or in my reality, the validity of that concept is nil. Other concepts of death, specifically those informed by religious texts are interesting to toy with and even challenge. I will not imbue any religious teaching with my own distaste for it. Like any other person, I have opinions about some systems of faith which are positive and others which are not.

I will readily go on the record and voice my own disapproval of religious teachings which attempt to regulate human activity by enforcing any belief in damnation. To me, this is wickedness; a terrible wickedness which wields a power over the mind of any believer in such theocratic scare-tactics which is absolute. Such spiritual threats are, in my opinion, likely the cause of acute psychiatric scarring.

I do believe in Hell, but not in the traditional sense. As spiritualists believe that we “make our own happiness as we choose to live our lives according– or in defiance– of nature’s laws” ( I am paraphrasing) I personally believe that Hell is a reality. It is here, and many do experience it as they walk through their current incarnations— I suppose we all do at some time and I suppose that some people experience more of it, or that some feel the pain it brings with a greater intensity.

I believe that we can make Hell out of our lives quite effectively while we are “alive.” Hell is an Earthly reality.

So far as my belief in a “Heaven” goes, I have no issue with that concept, or with the word. Indeed, I often use that word to describe the place or state we arrive at when we die. Yet, my own belief system is one which holds that the bliss of Heaven is a grace a human soul will know only after it “perfects itself” by living through as many earthly incarnations as is necessary in order to achieve the right and ability to experience, know and fully comprehend true Paradise.

I do believe in reincarnation. Many are astonished by this, because they assume that I must live within the restrictive confines of strict Spiritualist thinking— and therefore I must believe that following death every human soul enters into the realm of Spirit. I understand this confusion. After all, how am I going to tell anybody that I– or any other medium– can put a person living on the material plane “in touch” with a person who is now a resident of the spirit plane when I am issuing a conflicting message… How can I “talk to the dead” if I believe that the dead are reincarnated into new bodies?

Before I answer I want to first say that while I do believe in the creed and principles or Spiritualism, that there is no despotic consensus amongst Spiritualists where the concept of reincarnation is concerned. Some believe in it, others do not. I also want to say that there exists no conflict between my identity as a medium (who speaks with the dead) and my belief in reincarnation. It is that last sentence which provokes the most consternation when I speak on reincarnation.

Here is my brief “apology,” or explanation: Our own ideas about time and space box us into a cell where we have difficulty comprehending why a soul which is supposedly moving on towards a new bodily incarnation would linger around long enough to speak with a spirit medium. In fact, I feel as though our capacity to think in terms of what appears most logical only is the clumsiest and most staunch stumbling block which foils us when we try to make sense of what we are taught to believe is nonsensical. We do not know how many dimensions there may be and our very strict interpretation of time makes it far more simple to believe that if we reincarnate it must be something done immediately. This sort of thinking doesn’t allow much support for belief in things such as rest between lives.

I am a believer in the notion of rest between lives. I also hold a belief that there are souls which do reincarnate speedily. Sometime I am unable to “get” information from a person who has passed on. Perhaps they have reincarnated. This seems likely to me, as the quickest and most accurate identifying information is furnished to me by souls who exited this plane rapidly, violently, with unresolved issues– or at their own hand. Thus, it would appear that more “rest” is needed. Or that the time to make contact with those they left abruptly is allowed or provided for as they linger, waiting for the time to make themselves understood via a spirit medium, or by their own persistence in a particular place where they may physically manifest or cause physical disruptions in order to prove that they are still “here.”

If we are, indeed, capable of speaking with the so-called dead, how is this achieved? More importantly, how is this explained? I believe that mediums exist in order to fulfill this role. Why one person is able to serve as a medium while another is not is the subject of debate. This is an intensely esoteric concept, and a proper explanation would require a much longer venue than a blog. I am perhaps risking doing a disservice to mediumship by speaking so quickly, but to sum up the “explanation” for how this works, I offer you the following:

I believe that our dead are often very close to us. So close that some can “feel” their presence, and others may “hear” their thoughts. The ability to understand spirits is perhaps best explained by the idea that we are all “vibrating” at a certain frequency throughout our lives. Those who we understand to be dead are actually vibrating at a higher level than is the human soul encapsulated within a living, physical human body. When we do “cross-over” we then vibrate at that higher level. People such as me, people identifying as “mediums” are naturally capable of making two-way communication with the spiritual essence of the dead because we naturally vibrate at a level higher than most people and lower than that at which pure spirit does. I also believe that each dimension of existence has a vibration which is peculiar to that dimension.

Those who have “crossed-over” to the next, most immediate dimension are the most accessible because the dimension occupied by those who have died more recently is that which is closest to our own plane. (I use the word plane as a synonym for dimension). The essence of wise figures from the distant past or the spiritual material and cognition of Angelic Beings or “Ascended Masters” are more difficult to reach. This is why people attempting to communicate with Ascended Masters or Angels— or even God— often are seen chanting, breathing rhythmically, or meditating. They must do something in order to raise their own vibration to a level high enough that perceiving and understanding these beings is facilitated. Of course, people talk to Angels and to God every day without doing any such thing. I believe that such people are heard by these spiritual forces. To be heard is simple. However, in order for a person to hear the wisdom or guidance of such beings, then it becomes necessity to raise the vibration– via meditation or by other practices which facilitate this communication.

Mediums do not necessarily always prepare for communication with the spiritual energies of persons who we think of as being dead. Persons who serve as “channels” for higher spiritual identities– those who are more spiritually evolved, such as “Ascended Masters,” always do prepare. I channel my own guide only on the occasions when I feel an urge to do so. This urge, if you will, dictates that I immediately prepare, for this feeling always means that a specific wisdom— or message—is forthcoming and must be channeled. It is rare that I do channel my guide for any client. Most are not ready for the type of message they will receive. Many are perturbed by the physical changes they appreciate in my visage as it contorts… Some find his accent difficult to understand. “His” accent has been described to me (after re-emerging from trance) as “Indian,” “Haitian,” or “Asian.” My guide has allowed me to understand some of his earthly incarnations, and I can only assume that when he speaks through me, he utilizes an accent or form of speaking which reflects one of these— or that he speaks in a manner which he deigns is most likely going to impress the listener as authentic and powerful.

I do not do anything special in order to prepare for communication with the souls of “dead” people. Other than to respect the position I occupy as one who has been granted authority to live in a mezzanine, if you will, and to occupy this place in a responsible way— I do not go into an “Alpha” state or need to do anything out of the ordinary to prepare for work. When I do channeling work, I certainly always do prepare beforehand. But, as a person with a natural, innate ability to sense and comprehend the thoughts and emotions of those who are not “with us” in any corporeal sense, I do not require special preparation. I have almost always heard “them” and I have never feared “them.” This has always seemed natural for me, but I did have help along the way.

While I have had psychic ability for as long as I can recall, I do think that this ability was sharpened when I became gravely ill at age nine. My ability to listen to, talk with—and deliver messages from—spirit, developed as I recovered from encephalitis. The time I spent in “development classes” in the Spiritualist Church also whittled away any sort of cumbersome matter which muddled my other, my psychic, sense. I am indebted to certain people who served as teachers during my youth and into my early twenties. One of these wise, and beloved people, was my deceased maternal grandmother.

I am asked by many people whether or not I think we all possess psychic ability. The answer is that I do believe that all men and women are psychic, and that all people may develop this ability to the level they wish. I also believe that certain individuals are more likely to naturally maintain the psychic ability we all carry at birth. I do not believe that all men and women are mediums. I believe that a medium is born and not made. I do teach classes and workshops in mediumship. I believe that anybody can develop a certain degree of ability in that direction, too. But it is different, and most students seem to become stunted permanently at certain levels of development. reaction when I answer the simple, conversational question: “So, what do you do.” The reactions I receive when I answer this question run the gamut from curiosity, to happy enthusiasm and to disgust.

There are many people who will gravitate towards me at parties and get-togethers because I am “unusual” because I have chosen to identify as a medium and not shirk the responsibilities incumbent upon myself or upon anybody who does so. There are other people who will steer clear of me because they feel I am engaging in some verboten evil. Then, there are those with whom I must sometimes contend who believe that people who call themselves mediums are nothing more than charlatans engaged in a ruthless and low chicanery whose sole aim is to take advantage of the bereaved for financial gain.

This last group is the one which I feel the most uncomfortable with— because there are now, and have always been, many fraudulent mediums. I can understand the contempt they feel. However, they are often so closed-off to the idea that some of us are doing a great deal of good. I can only offer a glimpse at what I do, in an earnest attempt to prove that life is a continuous process. But, I would be lying outright if I were to state that I did not wish that this sort of skeptic were at least partly receptive to the notion of true, authentic mediumship. Skepticism is healthy; I am a skeptic. I have a rule I issue to anybody who is interested in pursuing a session with a medium: Follow your heart, but do not think with it. Wait until you have sufficiently dealt with your grief before running towards a medium. Run away from a “medium” who tells you that your loved one is hopelessly earthbound… Run from a “medium” if he demands, or subtly implies, that a donation of your cash or services can help ease the sorrow of any soul. A true medium understands that the door to reformation is not closed to any soul. True mediums will never ask a client to give money or services in order for the path to a more serene dimension to be opened for a soul who is “stuck” in an astral state.

My beliefs and opinions regarding death are based, mostly, on my own experiences. I have seen too many clients whose dead have “come through” with astonishing revelations and accurate information to be unconvinced.

Yet, I continue to question myself and my ability. I feel that when people— when mediums— stop questioning and start feeling like oracles, they become very obnoxious and repulsive people. The hubris which one can easily develop when working at this is a very special, very toxic kind of pride. I feel strongly that a medium is born as a medium and that such an individual, upon recognizing what that means and entails, must accept his or her role and then function in society. This does not mean that every medium is going to shout it from the rooftops, or make it his or her career. Some of the loveliest mediums I have had the pleasure of meeting have been extremely introverted, unassuming folks who relegate their work with spirit to time spent in church or with close friends and family. Then again, I have known several “career mediums” to be kind and giving spirits… Sometimes, they are extremely bright, but do not function well at “Nine to Five” occupations. That is me; I could do other things, but I would be checking my happiness at the door every day I arrived at work. I am grateful that I do not have to do so.

Again, my life is atypical because of what I do. We are so reliant upon career to define us that it is ridiculous. A coal miner is only a coal miner by trade. A physician may have an added amount of responsibility because of his choice of occupation– but occupation is only a facet of his identity.

In the next world, or dimension, what we did in order to make a living is not always going to matter– lest that occupation be vile or cruel by nature. What will matter then, and should matter now, is that we try to exist harmoniously with all others. What will matter is that we aren’t burdened by guilt or resentment. If one carries regret for behaviors in which he has engaged; or for words he has spoken in hostility will weigh down the soul and slow its progression. Regret must be processed in order to move ahead, unencumbered. Regret also signifies that your mind, heart and soul have the ability to feel remorse, which means you are a being of goodness. The most important thing you can do now to change forever is to set your wrongs right. Doing this now, and not later, is the only way one can assure that resentments and guilt will not be stumbling blocks to spiritual perfection

With Respect, Empathy and Well Wishes,

JEFFREY JUSTICE