EXCLUSIVE! 19th Century Psychic rips Long Island Medium
A séance was held, and the spirit of famed 19th Century psychic Catherine Fox agreed to an exclusive interview to celebrate the appearance of the Long Island Medium in Edmonton – just like magic!
GIGCITY: Ms. Fox, thanks for doing this. I know you must be busy.
FOX: I always have time for the living.
GC: It’s a great honour to talk to the person who conducted the first recorded séance in 1848. You and your sisters were psychic pioneers. So many mediums have followed in your footsteps. Do you know Theresa Caputo? She calls herself the Long Island Medium and she sold-out Rexall Place on Wednesday, June 10. She makes millions of dollars talking to the dead.
Catherine Fox, left, and sister Margaret, conducted the first recorded seance in 1848. Many have followed their footsteps.
FOX: (Whistles). Wow. Sure, I know the Long Island Medium. I see her on TV all the time.
GC: You have television in heaven?
FOX: Where?
GC: Never mind. Has she ever talked to you?
FOX: Just one time. She wanted to know who did my hair.
GC: What do you think of her work?
FOX: Don’t think much of it, to be honest. Where’s the bell ringing, the table tapping, the levitations? It’s all talk, no action.
GC: But didn’t you admit that all your séances were hoaxes?
FOX: Is this on the record?
GC: Well …
FOX: Doesn’t matter. I’m dead. What can they do to me? It all started with a trick we played on our mother. It kind of got out of hand. We did eventually tell all the news-papers that we were just tricking people. We even showed them how we did it. But no one believed us. Can you believe it?
GC: Really?
FOX: Yeah, more people wanted to believe we were real. After us, psychics popped up all over the place. Seances were all the rage.
GC: Were you mad other spiritualists stole your ideas?
FOX: Not really. They knew we were the first, and we were very successful. Did all the swankiest séances in New York. Too successful, I’m afraid. Mediumship is a thriving business. Maybe we started hitting the Laudanum so hard because of all the guilt, I don’t know.
GC: Guilt for preying on grief-stricken people just to make a buck?
FOX: That’s one way to put it. But don’t forget that the bereaved desperately want to be reassured that their dearly departed loved ones have gone to a better place. We only say positive things: “Your mother says she loves you.” Not much of a stretch there. We make people feel better. People are happy to pay, and they go home happy. What’s wrong with that?
GC: A lot of people say the Long Island Medium is fake.
FOX: Of course she’s fake. She collects information on her subjects ahead of time, makes good observations, and in her TV show uses clever editing to make her seem more clairvoyant than she is. And when she gets in front of a big crowd of people, all she has to do is say something like “I see a hospital room, a vase of yellow flowers and old man on his deathbed, someone named David?” and chances are she’ll get a hit with at least one middle aged audience member. Voila! Instant psychic.
GC: You seem to know a lot about the business of spiritualism. And I must say you don’t talk like a 19th Century person. You talk like a 21st Century skeptic. I’m a little skeptical.
FOX: Do you think I died yesterday? I do keep up on the latest trends, you know. We have the Internet. I keep in touch with all the spiritualists who have passed over to the afterlife. They have a special place for us.
GC: OK, time for the tough question: Do you really believe it’s possible to communicate with the dead?
FOX: Ha! You’re talking to me, aren’t you?
GC: Good point.
FOX: What do say now, Mr. Skeptic?
GC: What if you’re just making this up?
(Table flips over, smoke fills the room, chandelier crashes to the ground, dishes fly out of the cabinet and shatter on the floor. No more is heard from the ghost of Catherine Fox.)
