Here’s an article about someone who is offering $50,000 as a prize for proof of communication with the spirit world — proof that the spirits are, in fact, those who have passed on.
The amazing Randi has had a standing challenge for years, offering $1,000,000 for essentially the same thing. No one has taken up either challenge.
Why would that be? I think there are two perspectives. If you’re a legitimate medium, you might have the spirits clam up and not say anything, just to teach you a lesson. Kinda like the old looney tunes cartoon One Froggy Evening, where the frog really sings, but as soon as anybody other than its owner is around, only croaks. The other perspective is that if you’re a fake medium, you don’t want to be exposed. The problem is that the challenge doesn’t help ferret out one from the other, because nobody takes it up.
My personal opinion is that some things are above money. Mediumship is one of them. It’s ok to charge reasonable rates for readings and services and the like, but to prove that it exists for a sum of money is a form of prostitution I’d rather not participate in. And on top of it, were I to have the brass ones to want to prove it and collect the prize money, I’d get a serious lesson. Either right up front, when the spirits clam up instead of talking, like the frog, or even worse, after I “prove it” and all sorts of problems start cropping up as a result of it.
Oh no, I’m not about to go there. I want nothing to do with any of it. My view is that if you can’t let your own experience be your proof, and you can’t be aware enough that there are some phoneys out there amongst the legitimates, then you have a problem that no one else but you can solve. And money won’t help you.
I have been very fortunate to have experienced enough to show me that mediumship exists. But I’m not out to convince you or anybody else that it exists. That’s for the spirits to do, if they so choose. And they don’t do tricks for prize money.
