Beyond Black: Hilary Mantel

[poliphilo]

Round and round the London Orbital, driving from venue to venue, go Alison and Colette, the psychic and her manager, one fat, one thin, one with too much imagination, the other with too little- bringing a kind of comfort to hollowed out people in hollowed out towns. In the back seat sits Morris, Alison's spirit guide, a little man with disgusting habits and equally disgusting mates- Mr Aitkenhead, Keef Capstick and Pikey Pete.

Once upon a time Alison was a little girl ("if anyone asks, say you're sixteen") living with her mother and her mother's imaginary friend in a squalid house in a garrison town- and Morris and his mates (then all still alive) were the "uncles" who were always dropping by and leaving tenners on the sideboard. There were fighting dogs in pens at the back of the house. There was a bath in the front garden. Alison once imagined she saw a disembodied head in that bath...

Like is drawn to like. We get the ghosts we deserve. The feeble and silly are haunted by feeble and silly ghosts. So what does it say about you if the ghosts that trail round after you are fiends?

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

It must be dreadful to have the dead showing up uninvited.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Apparently, yes, it is. One fellow drank very heavily in the evenings, in part because it suppressed the dreams. The folks that usually appeared to him were freshly dead and still very upset and confused. From his wife's descriptions of the states he'd be in when waking in the night, it was most dreadful indeed.

I suspect it's a nasty business and by all accounts it is. I look at people who volunteer as mediums, or pretend to, as somewhat pathological.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mantel's mediums are all severely damaged. And those that aren't damaged are unpleasant.

I know a guy who is borderline psychic. Things happen around him and he hates it. I've suggested he should get training- and learn to control and use the "gift", but he doesn't want to know.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Apologies, I seem to have missed this one.

The two naturals I've known had no control over it and the only control they desired was to make it stop. One individual did take up yoga and some light work in "applied metaphysics". It seemed to help immensely, so I think some degree of control can indeed be acquired.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's my impression too. I know the Spiritualists train their mediums.