A personal investigation. . . (repost from AMNAP 1.0)

I decided a few months ago that it was time to take my research to a more personal level. In my case, I made the decision that I would go to a medium for my own reading, and write about it on my blog.

Marcel Cairo agreed to do a reading for me and that I could write about it here on AMNAP. Initially I thought of it as something of an experiment for the blog, but I then realized that formal controlled trials would require far more time than I had available. So instead this falls under the rubric of "anecdotal evidence".

Marcel conducted the reading with me via telephone. He recorded the reading and sent me the audio files afterwards.

I found the reading largely convincing and very meaningful. It was a much more personal experience for me than I had realized it would be.

Marcel writes, "mediumship is an imperfect form of communication for lack of a better one. The goal of a respectable medium is 100% honesty, not 100% accuracy." And there were some misses, such as Marcel's question whether my father was deceased -- he is alive and well.

However the number and quality of hits was subjectively very impressive. Here are some of the hits, although several of the most impressive have been removed to preserve the privacy of living family members.

"[referring to someone who has passed over] I feel like there is a 2 syllable J name" - My younger brother Jordan is deceased, and I was eagerly hoping to hear from him.

"Someone in your family [currently] writing a book" - My wife has written several novels and is working on one currently.

"I'm getting a 2 syllable A name, like Alex. . . Is it Alex?" - Jordan and I have a half-brother named Alex.

"Talking about a wreck connected to Alex. . . I don't know if this is referring to alex, or a male to the side, or a grandfather figure" - After his early childhood Alex was raised by his aunt and uncle. His uncle's parents died in a car accident recently.

"I don't know the correlation between your younger brother and Alex's older brother but they're connected somehow, they're showing me an '&' sign." - My younger brother is Jordan, who is also Alex's older [half]-brother.

"They're telling me that somehow your younger brother and his older brother are connected. . . Matthew did your younger brother pass?" - My younger brother Jordan (referred to above) did pass, my younger brother and Alex's older brother are the same person, so they are definitely connected!

"[regarding a message from my brother] Is there something in June or July. . . Are there 2? Is there something in June and in July? . . . He's giving me a six AND a seven, something like someone's birthday, or an anniversary." My wedding anniversary is in June and Jordan's death anniversary is in July. Marcel also associated rice with one of these dates (wedding, obviously!)

"Someone important, someone missed your wedding?" - My mother missed my wedding, you could hardly get more right than this!

"He's playing brown eyed girl to me" - Jordan was the only brown-eyed sibling from my parent's marriage. I used to tease him by singing "brown eyed boy" to him to the tune of "brown eyed girl" and he would fly into a rage. I suppose he has forgiven me that unkindness now. . .

"I'm getting Bailey's Irish Cream here" - My son Dylan mentioned this as a flavor of ice cream he really liked a day or so before the reading.

"[your brother],He said 'you wrote something about me'" - I did write something about Jordan, the day before the reading. I had not written anything previously about him in some time.

"You have a really strong connection to nature. . . some kind of outdoor connection" - Absolutely. I love to be outdoors and in recent years I have become serious about my landscape photography.

I asked Marcel if my brother wanted to talk about his passing. Marcel did not know anything about how Jordan had passed at this point in the reading.

"[Jordan said to Marcel and me:] No, I don't want to talk about my suicide. . . [Then Marcel mentioned seeing a gun] Is this a gun related suicide?" - Jordan did, in fact, die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"[Jordan mentioned] an issue about someone not going to college or delayed or dropped out?" - Jordan dropped out of college because of his depression, some time before he died.



Of course, this reading was not a formal experiment and does not prove anything scientifically. I could not rule out all other explanations based on this one reading. Nevertheless, I was very impressed with the reading and very glad that I was able to sit for Marcel. Thank you Marcel!