Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay of Nigeria Book

I know Derek Acorah from clips of his show, Most Haunted that used to appear on a TV show I used to enjoy, Harry Hill's TV Burp. I don't believe in ghosts or the afterlife, and I certainly don't believe mediums are genuine. That isn't to say I don't believe some medium's don't believe they are genuine, but that's not the same thing. The way I see it, a medium must surely be either a shyster or a crackpot.

In spite of this, everyone knows someone who believes in the afterlife and spirits and possibly even someone who visits a medium for readings. My own mother claims to have seen spirits, communicated with them and even had premonitions. I can hardly doubt her now, can I? Nevertheless, I put that down to something psychological rather than to something spiritual. I'm not saying she's mad, either. It's clearly a fairly common thing, so there's no need to suggest it is representative of mental illness.

Some people though decide to make a living out of being a medium. They do readings for people, visit sites and claim to be in contact with spirits, and even claim to have become possessed by them. Derek Acorah, as you may have guessed, is one of those.

So what's his book like?

Well, from the pleasant photo on the front cover, through the anecdotes concerning various haunted sites, and tales of receiving messages from the dead, doing readings for the bereaved, to being possessed by spirits, as you can imagine, Acorah presents himself in an endlessly positive light. He actually seems very likeable, even selfless - but not that credible.

I actually wanted to like him, even at times allowing myself to be taken in by tales of instances in which he'd provided accurate information to his clients, thinking, these might even be genuine. By the end I was thinking, I hope he's a crackpot, because when the only other option is being a shyster, the crackpot is the lesser of two evils. At least in that instance he would be deluded and not cynically and cruelly exploiting peoples grief.

The image portayed in the book though, is at odds with Acorah's on-screen image. I had to watch some videos of him on Youtube just to reacquaint myself with this creepy, abrasive, overbearing individual. Videos of him clearly making up all kinds of ridiculous bullshit and reveling in the attention he's receiving from audiences, tv presenters and tv crews, several of whom I can't actually believe are taking him seriously.

Anyway, this isn't about the videos, it's about the book. What more can I say about that? Well, the first thing is that it is very vague. You would think Derek would have a lot to say about how it feels to be possessed - but, no. In one sense, he was a footballer before he was a medium, so I can understand if writing isn't his forte. This is so vague though, that at one point I said to Mrs Cake, if you can't write better than this, you shouldn't be allowed to write a book. I think that's something publishers should take note of.

Nevertheless, as I've said before, you might think footballers can give you some deep insight into their abilities, but I've concluded after reading a few of their books that they just can't. It comes natural to them and they never question where it comes from. So it could be the same with a medium. I still think Acorah should be able to provide more detail, both about his abilities and about the anecdotes and situations he is relating.

Some of the things included here are simply preposterous. First he claims to visit a spiritual church where legendary Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly appears and communicates with him. Later he keeps experiencing Mary Queen of Scots and confidently informs us that she "traveled extensively and although the residual energy of her occupation of various buildings will always remain, her spirit body can only be in one place at any particular time." Presumably his spirit guide Sam clued him in on that particular factoid.

Then he visits the set of Coronation Street and it starts to read like a parody article from Viz as Acorah keeps running into spirits and saying, "it was none other than Ena Sharples!" Apparently the dead cast members were upset about the way the current cast was being treated by the producers.

This might not be ridiculous if you believe in this kind of thing - and I ain't saying nothing, but the kind of person who believes in mediums would seem to me to be the kind of person who might also be into Coronation Street - this reeks of pure fantasy.

Later Derek predicts the end of Gerard Houllier's reign as manager of Liverpool FC, and gives us a future prediction that we can use to verify or debunk Acorah's work. He says the new manager will be from a team known for wearing stripes. And this is where mediums always get you. You see, Rafa Benitez followed Gerard Houllier, and he made his name at Valencia. They don't wear stripes - but... there are some stripes in the club badge - oooooh! Among other teams he managed were Extremadura and Real Valladolid, both of whom may have worn stripes, but when you think about it, every professional player or manager in the world is likely to have some connection with a team that wore stripes - with a few notable exceptions of course - but 7 out of the 20 Premier League clubs currently wear stripes, so when you consider how many clubs a professional would tend to have links with, this isn't much of a prediction.

Is Derek Acorah a crackpot then? Well, it's worse than that. I think he's both a crackpot and a shyster.