p.s More Derren Brown shows in Scotland

I tried to meet him afterwards, but I chickened out due to the marauding hoards of young hormonal females all wanting a slice of him too – oh well maybe next time. Seats have nearly sold out for Northampton, which is close to me.

Derren have you any plans to to Warwick or Coventry University please ?

Keep up the briliant work by the way and thanks for the blog Coops,

John W. (Kenilworth – Yes me again)

have fun down in liverpool

take care

much love & bug hugs

chantelle ; )

So WHY is it that 2 people can stand up and say they see dead people – one of them being my SUPERVISOR (sort out italics on here Coops, there’s a love, I’m struggling to express myself!) and people don’t bat a bloody eyelid?

I’m a bit stunned that this has bothered me so much… I probably spend almost as much time as Derren obsessing about this stuff but I really was absolutely lost for words today…

Anna – I love irrelevent facts (lucky for me as I live with an Aspie!)

Quite obviously, and forgive me for pointing out something so banal, people who use psychics as a means of contacting dead love ones, find comfort in doing so. They may also find reassurance in the *fact* that this provides an *answer* to the question of life after death, and thus, our ultimate purpose or ultimate reality.

Leaving aside the questionable ethics of ‘psychics’ who charge money to provide this service, there is an interesting effect of this on our ethical lives.

If those who ‘spoke to the dead’ only took momentary comfort from these situations and did not allow it to dictate their views on lives, their would be little issue and psychics and believers could carry on without due criticism. However, there are critiques aimed at the impact upon the ethical life of life under law; a system of rules that is so authoritative, it can begin to monopolise our reason and leave our own development in tragedy. If this is quite reasonably aimed at the law, it must be more so at an ‘industry’ of psychics, whose supposed ability to provide comment on the big question of life, ie there is life after death, cannot be paralled in terms of the effect upon us. If the law provides authority in answering our questions, the impact of this ccan only be marginal in comparison the the questions that they claim to answer. They take the largest and most profound question possible, answer it and thus, act as an authority on those who believe.

The problem then arises when believers allow this authority to dictate their views on life, and even more so, their decisions. Their ability to an access to reason is diminished as their thoughts are consumed. Basically, your mind is closed.

Whilst this has obvious effects on the life of the individual, it does so on a wider societal basis also. If the idividuals, lose that individuality stemming from free and rational thought, society is comprised of mere products of collectivism of belief and no individuality. The individuals become the collective, and paradoxically, the collective an individual.

Whilst this criticism can be open to any belief system or authority upon us, it is possible to balance that, very crudely, with acknowledgemet of this. However, I dont believe this is possible with this very sensitive authority, because of the nature of the comfort it gives and feelings it stimulates.

Its more dangerous than someone being charged for a falsely specified product.

This ofcourse is a very crude description, probably full of spelling and gramatical mistakes, of what is worthy of an entire doctoral thesis. Anyhoo…

That’s how Conan Doyle and Houdini lost their friendship, too. (Yay for irrelevant facts )