REFLECTIONS ON ALMOST 50 YEARS OF PUBLICITY
This year it will be 50 years since The Link was first published and I’ve been reminiscing about those early years. I was young, quite naive and just 19-years-old, and nothing could have prepared me for the maelstrom into which I was unwittingly thrown.
Virtually overnight I found myself in almost every newspaper and magazine in this country and around the world - including Paris Match and Time magazine as well as the satirical magazine Private Eye - as tens of thousands of articles were written about me.
On one occasion in late 1974, two men were found rummaging through our waste bin outside. They were a couple of journalists hoping to find a new “exclusive” story whilst poring through our rubbish. I quickly learned that no area of my life was now sacrosanct and some red-top tabloids would stop at nothing in search of a story. It felt like a enormous invasion of privacy but was sadly par for the course once I became ‘public property’.
I was taken unawares by the level of aggressive scepticism towards me from some people. Larry Adler, the mouth organ player, wrote in a Sunday newspaper, tearing me apart - even though we’d never met and as far as I understood he had no interest in, nor experience of psychic phenomena. I was at a loss to comprehend his motive. There were unrelenting attacks by magicians although I quickly realised that these were primarily for their own self-publicity. In retrospect I was so lucky to have had the late Sir David Frost, with whom I did much television work, acting as a kind mentor. “Today’s newspapers carry tomorrow’s fish and chips”, he would tell me. “Don’t worry about what they write.”
On one occasion I was driving around Hyde Park in London with my mother as a passenger. We were stuck in traffic and my window was wound down when a man on a bicycle pushed his head into the car and began shouting angry abuse at me. Such angry and vitriolic scepticism was not uncommon but I learned after that event to keep my car windows closed.
When you’re in the public eye you become accustomed to inaccurate reporting or false stories. The irony was not lost on me that whilst I was sometimes accused of fraud or lying, those same journalists had no compunction whatsoever in publishing deliberately false or misleading stories. This was decades before we had even heard the phrase “fake news”.
Ironically, one of false stories helped The Link to become a bestseller in America in 1975. I’d been zigzagging the country for three weeks, appearing on TV and radio shows and giving countless Press interviews. One night I’d flown late into a city only to find that my publishers had arranged yet another interview with a journalist whose articles were nationally syndicated. I always had to remain polite no matter how tired I might be.
The journalist asked if I had a girlfriend - a question nobody had previously asked. I replied, perfectly honestly, that I didn’t have time for one. A couple of days later I was mortified by the headline across United States newspapers that pronounced “Psychic Is Not Wasting His Energy On A Sex Life”. The accompanying article bore no relation whatsoever to that late night conversation with the journalist - but it gained huge attention and massively boosted my book sales.
Sometimes there were unexpected and amusing benefits to fame. I once visited a nightclub - probably the first and only time in my life - and the owner had understood that I was a “famous cyclist”! I couldn’t understand why there was a flow of free drinks all night - until I left and hadn’t the heart to put him right.
Fame is wonderful for opening doors to people you might otherwise never have had the privilege of meeting. I’ve had such enjoyment over the decades spending time with musicians whose albums I bought as a youngster, film stars who have told stories never to be repeated that made me hoot with laughter, leading scientists and doctors, deep-thinking visionary writers and novelists, and royalty.
Personally, I cannot imagine why anybody craves fame yet it is now something for which many youngsters seem prepared to sell their soul. It takes away infinitely more than it gives and the pressures are unbelievable. Whilst I never sought it out I sometimes feel fortunate to have survived it as the strain was often immense and unrelenting.
I’ve had an amazing journey through life and like to think that I’ve managed to mostly keep my feet on the ground and to retain some sense of humility. I’ve made a few mistakes along the way - as we all have - but there’s not much that I’d change.
YEARS OF BEING TESTED DID NOT CHANGE SCIENCE BUT PERHAPS INFLUENCED PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF HEALING
Today a specialist company, Archive Masters, have begun an initial two-week exploration looking for any film, video, stills, research studies, etc. for the film about my life. I think these two photographs, held at Cambridge University Library, were taken in about 1979. I’d not previously seen them but they tell an interesting story.
Having spent many months being tested in research laboratories and universities in the US, I embarked on further work at the University of London where these photos were taken. Perhaps naively, I hoped that the years spent involved in scientific research would lead to a greater acceptance of my work and healing - but it wasn’t to be.
The scientific establishment simply ignored evidence and found ways to coerce researchers into withdrawing their support. Nobel Prize Winner Professor Brian Josephson was one of several eminent scientists with whom I worked during tests in Canada and later at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Following his experiences he said:
“I think we are on the verge of discoveries that may be extremely important for physics. We are dealing with a new kind of energy. This force must be subject to laws. I believe ordinary methods of scientific investigation will tell us a lot about psychic phenomena. They are mysterious but they are no more mysterious than a lot of things in physics already.”
His enthusiasm led to enormously positive coverage of me in the press whilst at the same time the scientific establishment came down heavily on him. Under threat of having funding withdrawn from his research into the theory of condensed matter, he could no longer risk - or afford - to be involved in the kind of experiments we had done.
Realising that my pipe dream of scientific acceptance was not going to happen, I too eventually withdrew from testing and research.
Whilst I may not have achieved my goal, the years I spent working with scientists undoubtedly led to the media taking me more seriously. My results in laboratories when I successfully influenced enzymes, mould samples, blood cells, seeds, and cancer cells were possibly the first time that healing couldn’t be simply dismissed as the result of faith, psychological factors, or placebo. Brian Josephson’s observation about a “new kind of energy” (as far as science was concerned), was almost certainly true.
But if that is the legacy of years undergoing scientific testing, I am happy.
MY ARCHIVES
The Senate House at the University of London hold the majority of my automatic writing and drawings, together with much other archive material, and if you’re interested in looking at my early work it can be viewed by appointment.
Cambridge University Library also hold extensive archives, including a full photographic record of the signatures on the walls of our former family home, Queen’s House. They also have copies of many of the reports of scientific research in which I was involved, together with numerous press cuttings. These too can be viewed by prior appointment or accessed online.
I also have enormous personal archives comprising of thousands of photographs. I’ve got press articles from around the world dating back to the early 1970s together with old TV footage of programs on which I appeared.
THE EVENING I SPOKE IN THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
In 1997 I was invited to talk to the Parliamentary Group for Alternative and Complementary Medicine about healing. The group had been set up in order to try to give legal status to the various different complementary therapies.
Thanks in no small measure to the enthusiasm of David Tredinnick, MP, it had succeeded in getting such protection for acupuncture and osteopathy and was looking to extend it to include other complementary therapies, including healing.
My visit to the Houses of Parliament on 28 October was quite an experience. The committee room was completely packed with a wide cross-section of MPs who had never previously attended the group’s meetings. I was surprised at the high level of interest shown in healing.
After talking about my work I told them about the antagonism towards healing shown by the German authorities. Earlier that year I had been scheduled to do a healing demonstration in Berlin. Upon arrival at the airport I presented my passport which was promptly taken away whilst I was left waiting, without explanation, for a considerable time. I’d obviously been recognised by the advertising and posters for the event. I was eventually allowed entry but presumably only after the relevant authority had been alerted.
When I later reached the venue, I was met by police officers ready with a threat supported by the relevant documents: if I gave a healing demonstration, I would be arrested and the organiser would be fined the equivalent of £20,000. I had no doubt that they would keep their word and the event was cancelled at the last moment. It wasn’t the first time I had run into problems with the police preventing me from demonstrating healing in public in Germany.
In a letter of thanks David Tredinnick sent me a few days after my talk to the parliamentary group, he seemed to have taken my concern seriously:
“Your experiences in Germany gave a stark warning of the threat to healing in this country, which we must address in Parliament, perhaps at some stage in the near future. Certainly it is essential for us to be vigilant concerning all European legislation and Directives.”
It was later brought up in the House of Commons but was of less importance than other EU subjects being debated. The rest, as they say, is now history - although healing still lacks the same legal protection afforded to acupuncture and osteopathy.
