For Mothers’ Day this year, my daughter invited me to go
with her and her girlfriend to see the local well known psychic medium, Maureen
Hancock, later in May. I had never been to a psychic medium, but my
daughter had been a few times and was quite taken with Maureen. I was skeptical of the powers that mediums
profess to have, but it sounded like a fun evening.
My daughter suggested that I read Maureen’s autobiography, “The
Medium Next Door: Adventures of a Real Life Ghost Whisperer”, and I did read
most of it before the evening of the performance. Maureen
is from Massachusetts and continues to live here. The references to Boston area locales were familiar
and interesting. The story of her life
is intriguing but often sad from birth on.
She certainly has had challenges in her lifetime including a severe
childhood illness and a near fatal car accident.
I was glad that I read her autobiography before going to see
her in person. It gave me a reference
point from which to learn about her life and her psychic abilities. The humor and down to earth manner that she
portrays in her book comes out in spades at her performances. Even without the spiritual message, Maureen
is a gifted entertainer. She is funny,
compassionate and a natural performer.
I was not lucky enough to be singled out to be visited by a
deceased relative during my evening with the spirits, but my daughter and her
girlfriend were. It is difficult to
explain how Maureen knew so many personal things about them. I remain skeptical of the powers that
mediums profess to have, but I do want to keep an open mind.
At the end of each chapter of Maureen’s book she adds
inspirational directions on how to face and accept life’s trials and
tribulations. These do enhance and promote
her story as well as add a dimension that is not totally other worldly.
To learn more about mediums, I decided to read a bit more. “Small
Mediums at Large: the True Tale of a Family of Psychics” is the autobiography
of Terry Iacuzzo, a psychic from a Sicilian-American family born on Halloween into
a 1950’s working class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Like Maureen Hancock, Terry professes to have
a genetic predisposition to the spiritual world. She also, like Maureen, had a sad and
challenging childhood and uses humor to deliver her feelings and
experiences. Terry’s book was entertaining
but not especially convincing to me that she was authentic. It read more like a novel and seemed to be
meant more to entertain than profess and convince readers of her psychic
powers.
The third book, “World
Religions and Beliefs: Mystics and Psychics” by Joanne Mattern tells the lives
of six well-known psychics from Medieval times (Hildegard of Bingen) to the twentieth
century (Jeanne Dixon). It is a very
comprehensive and historical documentation of mystics and psychics thru the
ages that has an academic style, but is easy to read. It’s a book I would not have previously
sought out before, but I enjoyed reading it.
All in all, entering
the world of psychics by visiting Maureen and reading the stories was an
interesting and unique experience. Maureen’s story of her life was the most
convincing, but, as she states in her book, “I’m not here to convince anyone
that there is an afterlife., but I do hope through my own faith, experiences
and interactions with the living and dead that I’ve planted seeds of hope and
possibilities that there is something more out there when we leave this earth.”
As an echo to Maureen’s words, the introduction to “World Religions and Beliefs: Mystics and Psychics”
states, “Whether people believe in their abilities or not, studying their lives
gives society a glimpse into the unknown and provides a new way of looking at what
might lie beyond ordinary sight.”
