A remarkable evening with Derek Acorah, Medium, Psychic and Ghosthunter from 'Most Haunted'

The opportunity presented itself this week to go and see Derek Acorah, a spiritual Medium from Liverpool who is becoming increasingly famous in the UK for his remarkable talents in the fields of clairvoyance and clairaudience.

Although a scientist by training, I am nevertheless open to many aspects of 'alternative' knowledge: anything that stops short of taking on religious connotations, really. I enjoy a long-standing friendship with Messrs Martin and Dave Cosnette, who share this interest in the paranormal . We are currently working on a project entitled 'Gloster Ghosts'; an investigation of paranormal happenings in the county of Gloucestershire in England.

Martin has long had a gift for seeing beyond this world. He has seen many ghosts as well as other similar phenomena, including the quintessential 'orbs', minor poltergeist activity, shadowmen and spectacular UFOs. Dave has shared some of these experiences, and is particularly attuned to picking up voices from beyond. I have known these chaps for 25 years and trust them impeccably. So their accounts of their experiences have coloured my ability to accept a different reality from that which has been foisted upon us by our Western upbringings.

Perhaps as a result of this openness things of a paranormal nature have happened in my house. Martin has seen the ghost of an elderly lady a couple of times here. Once she walked into the room through a wall and stood next to me. He described her as looking as real as I did. We are convinced from various aspects of our experiences in this house that my wife's grand-mother is 'around' and keeping an eye out for our two children, whom she never got to meet in life. I became even more convinced of this reality when Dave was able to furnish me with her name.

Other spirits have been spotted here as well. During one of our card evenings I said to Martin 'you haven't spotted anything here for a while'. He replied with a description of a shadowman who had bolted across our ceiling not 10 minutes before, and had looked straight at Martin. Freaky. My wife's since seen orbs, and I've seen things in the corner of my eye, which appear to stand on the threshold of manifestation.

But Martin's experiences are profound in comparison, and seem to be increasing in frequency. So what a jump it must be to be in the mind of Derek Acorah. He appeared on the popular TV show 'Most Haunted', as part of a team of investigators and experiencers who travel around the British Isles hanging out in spooky spots and trying to get a handle on what's going on.

Derek Acorah has an additional companion in his Spiritguide who is called 'Sam'. I'm guessing here, but where Acorah is a Medium in the material plane, Sam is his Medium link in the spirit world, and between them they have created a remarkable channel for contact beyond folk here and their loved ones beyond. They can also discover the underlying causes for various hauntings and presences both good, and not so good.

The relationship between Acorah and 'Sam' is an interesting one, and I've included some links at the bottom of this pages for those wishing to learn more. But before you surf over to those pages I would like to describe the Derek Acorah evening that I attended at the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre on 9th February 2004.

Evenings of Spiritualism are a bit new to me, and I suppose I half expected Acorah to stand on stage waiting for something to happen. But he seems to be so open to the world of spirits that he is quite literally surrounded by them. On a Radio Gloucestershire show with John Rockley, who is highly sceptical, Acorah claimed that there were more 'people' on stage than there were in the audience.

So the evening works a bit like this: a huge screen is up on stage and a cameraman films the audience, relaying images directly onto the screen. That way one can sit and see oneself behind Acorah, particularly crucial if you're the individual picked out by him, or rather the spirit interacting with him. A spirit would come forward to Acorah and give him enough information to pinpoint someone in the audience, and then an increasingly intense exchange of information would take place, invariably to the delight of the audience and the bewilderment of the subject.

Such theatrical allusions can invite a fair amount of scepticism, made all the more cutting by the professional side of these shows. But Acorah's talent to highlight accurate information about his audience participants was eerie.

A couple of my more sceptical companions believed that the participants had to be 'plants', which seemed unlikely given their local accents. But here was where the large screen behind Acorah came in: you could see their non-verbal reactions intimately as Acorah brought forth information about their lives and their recent actions. If they were 'plants' they were all actors of great potential.

Then one of them appeared who turned out to be an acquaintance of mine. She had been picked out by her first name, which I shall shorten to 'K'. Then she and her husband were bombarded with, to them, very real facts about their lives and their ambitions, and predictions for their futures. Well, I had no idea that 'K' was going to be in the audience, but it sure as hell dismissed any possibility that this event was stage-managed. This was evidently the real thing going on here. I saw 'K' the next day and she was overwhelmed by the whole thing. She was already a big fan of Derek Acorah and had stopped behind after his show to speak with him. He had said before that growing openness to such possibilities increases the chances of one or more of your spirit-relatives getting through to him at such events, and I suspect this is what happened here.

I can't say that I am incredulous. Perhaps I am slowly moving along the spectrum of spiritual realisation, and am more attuned to the possibilities. It all seemed to make a lot of sense to me. I'm probably an 'old soul', or so many have said, and from quite a young age I adopted the notion that we have had previous lives, with more to come, and that we spend 'time' in between in the spiritual planes. Accordingly, it makes sense that we can continue to interact with our living relatives, and can expand our knowledge of all things spiritual before and after the transition between life and death.

I daresay Dave and Martin and I all knew each other in previous lives, as per other members of our family and circles of friends.

I feel further comforted that our boys have Guardians in the spirit-world. Overall, the ramifications for the existence of spirits after death can only be positive, surely?

C. Nevin "He'll Never Walk Alone" The Guardian Weekend, pp21-25, 27th August 2005

P. Dunbar "Ghosts: Why we all have the power to contact them" Daily Express, pp28-9, 15th September 2005

This is a remarkable first-hand account of life as a medium. By the end of the book, even the most skeptical reader must surely entertain the possibility that spirits interact with us. There are just so many accounts of evidence Derek Acorah provides, much of it under very arduous and testing circumstances. His ability is a far cry from the tentative educated guesses doled out by some so-called mediums. In fact, he gives eerily accurate, often profound, messages to people who are more often than not highly sceptical. Their amazement is often captured by a television camera or over the radio, which adds the the strength of Acorah's auto-biographical evidence.

This ability of his has been tested by skeptics on radio and television over and over again. To doubt that Derek Acorah can provide telling and personal messages to complete strangers is to be blissfully unaware of the mountain of evidence in this book and elsewhere. Instead, the question that must be asked is simply "How?". Either Derek Acorah can do mind-reading, or he really does interact with the spirit-world in a comprehensive manner. He denies mind-reading abilities emphatically.

The other quality that comes through, which makes this man so very special, is his empathy. He loves being around people and assumes no airs and graces, which his wide fame and fortune would have placed on a lesser man. He is approachable, funny, warm and personable. He seems very aware of the effect his psychic messages might have on people who are emotionally delicate, perhaps through the loss of a loved one, showing great compassion and understanding at a deep human level.

One of my favourite accounts form the book is his trip to Spain when he gets lost attempting to find a spiritual retreat. He finds a cafe run by an Englishman and his Spanish wife, and gets talking. They ask him to investigate an empty neighbour's house, which they hold the keys to. The couple were disturbed by paranormal events when the previous owners moved in. But Acorah is then visited by the couple's relatives, who pass on loving messages to them, saying that the paranormal events were their spirits trying to attract attention. Initially, the couple think there is devilry involved, and berate Acorah, claiming he is tricking them. "How so?" retorts Derek; "I found you quite by chance and you asked me to do this investigation!" Then, as the information he gives them becomes more certain and verifiable, they are overcome by joy, whilst saying that their religious beliefs argue that what he has done is quite impossible.

It is a poignant lesson. The evidence this man provides of life-after death is compelling. But our educations and belief systems all-too-often create a wall of skepticism which attempts to steam-roller over the obvious; that this man really does speak with the dead.

You can order your copy through Amazon.com here:

The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah

If you live in the UK, you can obtain your copy through Amazon.co.uk here:

The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah

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Ghost-hunting is very popular in the U.K. at the moment, in no small part due to the pioneering work of Derek Acorah. His books could be seen as a spin-off from this TV shows, including 'Most Haunted'. Derek Acorah's writing style creates a more positive feel to this though. His gentle charm pervades the book, soothing your passage through tales of ghosts and spirits and things that go bump in the night. I think this is Derek's best book so far.

His introduction to ghost-hunting includes helpful advice, and a list of kit to take with you to whatever old mansion/graveyard/haunted house you're visiting tonight. He describes the types of manifestation which are commonly experienced. It's a bit like a "Ghost-busting 101" course. After a while, the book takes on a more familiar feel, with stories from Derek's own personal experience. At this point a selection of photographic plates would have been a nice addition to the book; of Derek out and about, of paranormal phenomena, of his times on his various TV shows.

But even without photos, one can get a considerable insight into Derek's world. He writes clearly and informally, giving you the feeling that you're reading a letter (or e-mail!) from an old friend, rather than a celebrity TV personality. This makes the stories of ghosts and spirits that bit more believable, because naturally enough you would pay more attention to a ghost story related to you by a friend or relative rather than a total stranger.

Towards the end of the book Derek discusses parts of Britain which are 'most haunted'. At this point the book becomes less personal, and more encyclopaedic in content. This change seems to reflect a general trend in Derek's literary forays. His first book is almost entirely introspective; an introduction to the life and times of the man himself. His second book then moves through his later experiences psychic adventures, as he works with his mediumistic abilities to help members of the public. This third book looks to a broader panorama, concentrating on introducing others to the art of ghost-hunting. If the trend continues then you can expect his fourth book to examine ghost stories from around Britain, with much less emphasis on Derek's own personal encounters.

In this spectrum of psychic encounters, I think this book captures the best mix of anecdotes, stories, personal insights and advice for budding ghost-hunters, all accompanied by Derek's humour and gentle manner. It's the next best thing to your own spirit guide.