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James Byrne decides to tell the truth
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Exclusive report by Roy Stemman
 UNITED KINGDOM. The Lancashire medium James Byrne has confessed to me that he was wrong to blame his local newspaper, the Chorley Citizen, for misquoting him in a story that said he had ditched Spiritualism and given up mediumship (see Top medium quits saying, “I was deluded”).
He phoned me today (10 November) and admitted that the interview conducted by Gordon McCully was a totally accurate record of what he said, and he offers an apology to McCully for suggesting otherwise.
He made this decision yesterday, after reading www.ParanormalReview.com’s second story – James Byrne explains everything … or does he? – posted earlier this week, which reported Byrne’s claim to us that the local newspaper report was wrong, and we were wrong to quote it.
But in my second story on Byrne’s claims, I pointed out that our original story was not based entirely on the Chorley Citizen account, but also on my own brief conversation with him and also on his intended talk to the Sceptics in the Pub group, in which he would “expose” psychics.
I wrote: “If James Byrne has realised his decision to give up mediumship was a mistake, or he has had a change of heart about his commitment to Spiritualism, why doesn’t he just say so, instead of claiming that professional journalists are misquoting and misunderstanding him?”
After reading this, he sent me a couple of e-mails and then we spoke on the telephone today. He explained: “I decided, I’m just going to tell the truth and that’s the end of it.”
And the truth, it seems, is this:
James Byrne was being troubled by occasional “independent” voices on tape recordings of private sittings. Sometimes, they were good, like the time when a woman’s dead sister communicated through him. When she got home and played back the tape, her sister’s voice was on it. But on another occasion with a different sitter, a far less savoury voice manifested, cursing and swearing and threatening to kill Byrne.
He was shaken by this experience and upset that it also affected his sitter. It also coincided with warnings from a born again Christian friend who told him that the voices he heard were demons.
Working as a freelance journalist, Byrne also met and interviewed a number of “born again” show business personalities for a Nottingham-based publisher. They included Helen Shapiro, Syd Little (of Little and Large) and Tommy Ball (of Cannon and Ball), and they also warned him about the dangers of being a medium.
“I remember Tommy Ball saying, ‘You’re standing at the gateway to Hell’.”
This all happened at a difficult time, personally, in his life and he began believing what they told him. So he decided to abandon Spiritualism and stop practising as a medium.
“I just allowed myself to be sidetracked. And at the time I said what I said [in his local newspaper interview] I believed it. I felt I was telling the truth.”
He decided to open a Christian Healing Church in a local village hall, meeting once a week, but on the second occasion “I just knew I wasn’t doing the right thing. Something inside me said, ‘You don’t need to do this; it’s not where you need to go’. Spiritualism and mediumship have been a part of my life for so long that from a personal point of view I couldn’t imagine my life without them.”
And so, James Byrne is taking up where he left off and resuming his work as a medium. He has only two public demonstrations booked in the coming months and is not planning a tour, focusing instead on private sittings. He did indicate to me that he would not demonstrate in public after the second meeting in March, but he admitted during our conversation that if someone asked him to take another public meeting “I’d probably do it”.
“My biggest regret in all this is that I wasn’t totally honest in the first place. I’m also going to send Gordon McCully an apology, because he did write what I said. I want him to know that I deeply regret that I made it look that he was wrong and I was right, which was a weakness on my part.”
Which is very commendable. But it surprised me that at no time during our 20-minute conversation did James Byrne offer any apology to the many sitters who must have been hurt by his rejection of Spiritualism, or to his fellow Spiritualists for the damage he has done to the Movement.
Perhaps that admission will come with time, too.
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Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Category: Mediumship
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