Spoons Will Bend At The Narrows

Saturday we have something completely different for the Narrows, mentalist Rory Raven, well known for his Providence Ghost Walks.

I interviewed him to get a feel for what kind of show we'll see Saturday night.

Q. Do you see dead people?

No. And I'm very skeptical of people who claim that they do -- which, I suppose, is a diplomatic way of saying I think they're just liars. I've seen a number of supposed "mediums" at work, and they always seem like they're just throwing out guesses and hoping that someone in the audience bites. "I see someone -- an older man -- with a heart condition? Or something in the chest? Does this make sense to anyone?" It's pretty amoral to tell someone that you're in touch with a deceased loved one, play a macabre game of 20 Questions, and then charge them for it.

This kind of thing has a long history behind it. Talking to the dead in America can be traced back to a farmhouse in Hydesville, which is in upstate New York, near Rochester. In March of 1848, two little girls, Katie and Maggie Fox, were kept awake night after night by strange rapping sounds that echoed throughout the house. Eventually, the family discovered that these raps could actually respond to questions -- two raps for no, three for yes. Word went out that the Fox sisters were in touch with the spirit world and soon people were coming from miles around and paying 25 cents for a seance. The sisters were brought to New York City by Horace Greeley ("Go West, young man!") and people like James Fennimore Cooper, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Beecher Stowe went to seances and heard the mysterious raps. A semi-religious, semi-philosophical movement called "spiritualism" coalesced around the seance, and it spread rapidly through America and overseas to Europe (particularly England).

Forty years later, in 1888, the sisters confessed that the whole thing had started as a hoax to frighten their mother. The famous spirit raps were caused by the sisters cracking the joints of their toes. They hoped that, as the first spirit mediums, their confession would finally put an end to what they felt was a girlish prank that had gotten out of control, but of course people still go to seances today.

Q. You read minds. How do you do that?

Very well, thank you. Actually, it's a combination of things. I know a thing or two about psychology, about how people think and react, I'm pretty quick on my feet, I have a good memory, I've spent time people-watching and observing, studying theater craft ... all of those things, and a few others, come together to allow me to do what I do.

Q. What can people expect to see and experience when they come to the show at the Narrows Center for the Arts?

I call the show BRAINSTORMING!, and it consists of some ninety minutes of psychic-themed entertainment. Minds are read, predictions come true, spoons bend, and volunteers test their own “powers.” In the second half of the show (“the strange half”), I'll demonstrate a remarkable memory, explore the power of suggestion and the so-called “trance state,” and conclude with the kind of manifestation you might have witnessed in a seance chamber over a century ago! Think of it as a guided tour through the world of the mind and its powers, both real and imagined. It's good spooky fun. While audience participation is a must (it's not all that entertaining if I just stand there and read my own mind, after all), no one is ever embarrassed or made uncomfortable in any way.

Q. Is what you do an art or a science?

An art. But any art has some science underlying it -- visual artists need to know about scale and perspective, musicians have math as the foundation of music, and so on.

Q. Who are your favorite mentalists?

Among my heroes is a man named Joseph Dunninger, who performed a mindreading act on radio in the 1940s. He had a big, forceful, persuasive personality, and was famous for saying "Any child of ten could do what I do -- with forty years practice!" He was quite a performer.

In England, the husband and wife team of Sidney and Leslie Piddington also made waves on radio in the 1950s. The husband was often challenged to mentally send a thought to the wife, who was remarkable able to pick up on it. Probably the most famous of their tests involved having Sidney at the BBC studio and Leslie in a cell at the Tower of London. In the studio, a line from a book was selected by a volunteer and Sidney concentrated on it. In her cell at the Tower, Leslie slowly recited the sentence word for word. The Piddingtons never said that they were or were not psychic, but always left it to the audience to decide for themselves. It was said that Sidney Piddington had the second most recognizable voice on British radio -- the most recognizable being Churchill.

Anna Eva Fay was a woman who toured through vaudeville in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, creating a sensation wherever she went. She would answer questions being thought of by audience members. One of her assistants, Washington Irving Bishop, later struck out on his own, performing a similar show and also exposing the methods of fake spirit mediums. During one private performance in the 1880s, Bishop fell into a cataleptic trance and was taken for dead -- and autopsied!

There are some pretty colorful characters in this line of work.

(photo by Christopher Martin)