Oh this article is just hilarious. Read on:
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In touch with the realm of the dead
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[FONT size=1]By [/FONT][A href="mailto:[email protected]"][FONT color=#cc0000 size=1]MIKE STROBEL[/FONT][/A][FONT size=1] -- Toronto Sun[/FONT][/FONT]
May I speak to Saddam, please?
"Pardon me?" The medium frowns.
Saddam Hussein. Lion of Babylon. Beast of Baghdad, bereft of life. Despot, deceased. Big, bad, bloke on a rope.
Must be one helluva spirit.
Jacob Marley thought he had problems.
"I don't want to tap into Saddam," the medium tells me. "Not with that kind of energy, all the pain he caused.
"I wouldn't want to communicate with Adolf Hitler, either."
Samantha Mullaney wrinkles her nose. She is drop-dead gorgeous, pardon the expression.
The accent is Edinburgh, fresh off the boat. Her hair is moonless midnight, eyes ghostly green, skin alabaster.
'IN LIMBO'
So, no line on Saddam, Sam?
"I feel he's in a kind of limbo and will probably have to come back to learn from what he has done. Perhaps in a simpler form."
I will tell George W. to keep his eyes peeled.
Any word on Jerry Ford?
"A very powerful presence."
James "I Feel Good" Brown? The Godfather of Souls?
"I feel good energy, but just a little bit, coming through all the other energy out there. It feels like he's dancing. Happy."
We're in the living room of a mansion off Lake Shore Blvd. W., home of master showman Scott McClelland, 42.
Against the far wall rests a stuffed, two-headed calf.
In your house or mine, it would stand out.
MACABRE
But Scott's place is wall-to-wall skulls, skeletons, snake skins, preserved monstrosities and other macabre miscellany.
I bet your mantel does not have a poison puffer fish used in zombie ceremonies.
Edgar Allan Poe glares from over the fireplace.
Place gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Samantha feels it, too, only more so. Too many spirits, so much energy to drain that she has been ill and tired since she arrived in November.
Constant shocks, too. Her contact with the departed is electric.
"I have to tune myself out, or I'd be a nervous wreck," she tells me.
I last saw Scott at his CNE freak exhibit, Carnival Diablo, World of Wonders.
His latest work, The Paranormal Show, opens at Passe Muraille Theatre on Friday. (See paranormalshow.net)
Samantha is the star.
Scott found her in Scotland, though it is her stage debut.
"This has always been a private thing, but I'm 34 and it's time to share it, to get it out there."
After each show, she will be totally spent.
Next stop is a stage in Timmins. Say hello to Bill Barilko's spirit.
Samantha wants to move to Canada. I wonder how many points Immigration gives if you are a channeler.
For Friday's finale, she will revive the old "spirit cabinet" of the 19th century. This is a sort of gathering place for ghosts.
I won't spoil the show. Let's just say, bells on bob tails ring, making spirits bright.
But do not ask to talk to your Aunt Bea.
"I'm not going down that road," says Samantha, who has been seeing and hearing things since she was a little girl.
But you do see dead people?
"With energy, you can never see just one person.
"What I get is an overwhelming feeling that's a mixture of things that happened in the past."
Bad things, mostly. The mansion is alive with bad vibes.
Says Scott: "The original owner in the 1940s died of a stroke, right here." In front of the fireplace. Sometimes you can smell his cigar smoke.
Shiver. The music is otherworldly. The incense is nag champa. The afternoon light shifts and fades.
Worse, says Scott, a paranormal expert found traces of a water demon, up from nearby Lake Ontario. It is bossing around the other spirits.
Scott hands me a toy monkey. It lolls in my arms.
Samantha gazes into my eyes. Is that a trance?
She touches my arm. It tingles.
The monkey comes alive. Clicking and clattering.
Saddam, is that you?
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