Happy mediums / In defence of exorcism
Francis Pike has narrated this article for you to listen to.
British politics and ghosts are subjects that rarely meet. Sometimes an MP or parliamentary aide might report a sighting of one of various spirits that inhabit the Palace of Westminster. It is said, for instance, that the ghost of the assassin John Bellingham haunts the Commons lobby at the spot where he gunned down Spencer Perceval. And last year the diary secretary to speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle excited the tabloids with her claim that once, in one of parliament’s side rooms, she felt a phantom dog nuzzling against her leg.
When I bought a pied-à-terre in Kensington, I got the dowser to give it a psycho-spiritual once-over
In general, though, politicians aren’t preoccupied with the paranormal. One exception is David Bull, the former TV presenter of Most Haunted Live! and the new chairman of Reform UK. On Good Morning Britain earlier this month, he was asked by Richard Madeley whether he had ever seen a ghost. Not only did Bull admit to having driven with a ghost in the boot of his car, he also told how a poltergeist had taken hold of the celebrity medium, Derek Acorah, and tried to strangle him.
This story was retold the other week with sceptical merriment at The Spectator’s weekly editorial meeting. Feeling that I should intervene in support of the supernatural, I confessed to the editor and his crew that I once hired someone to perform an exorcism at my house in Maida Vale. Merriment turned to suspiciously demonic laughter.
What were the supernatural........
© The Spectator
