The Wanaka Show

Stuart Landsborough - 1 February 2019

A Night to Remember with ‘Psychic’ Kelvin Cruickshank

The day we were nearly lynched in Wanaka!

On the 12th May, 2009, so-called psychic Kelvin Cruickshank of ‘Sensing Murder’ fame came to Wanaka to wow the locals with a one night show in the local town hall. It sounded like an interesting educational night out for my wife - Coleen and me, so we booked a couple of tickets.

It is often said of skeptics that they are closed-minded and should go along to psychic demonstrations that would then certainly change their minds, so as ‘open-minded’ skeptics (as I am sure most skeptics are), we decided to go for a good night out and to be educated- one way, or - another!

When we entered the hall, we purposely headed to seats in the middle of the room to be less conspicuous. We were there to sit, listen and learn. We were surrounded by some two hundred or so people (at $75 each, $10,000 profit for an evening, not bad, Kelvin!).

While we waited for the show to start, I casually looked around the hall, including looking up at the balcony. Apart from the lighting crew there was nobody there except for one guy who happened to be staring intently down at my wife. ‘Why’, I wondered, He kept staring, it was most peculiar. Later I realised that he was Kelvin’s spy. He was trying to locate a woman in a red top and had curly hair (that was my wife), with whom, just before the show, outside the theatre I believe he had casually started up a conversation and whittled out some very useful information to be handed on to the so-called psychic.

Kelvin gave a microphone to a woman in the front row; we could see her well in a close-up shot of her on a big screen on the stage. Then, unbelievably, he then turned to the middle of the crowd, looked straight at my wife: Coleen, and asked for another microphone to be handed to ‘the woman in a red top’ (Coleen). She was mortified!

But then he seemed to ignore Coleen and carried on with the first woman in the front row. While he was talking to her, he drew an upright line on a whiteboard and at the top of the line placed eight to ten stars. He then turned to the audience and stated that each of these stars represented a spirit, all of which related to Coleen. Going through our minds was that surely he must know who we are (my outspoken sceptical opinions), and, must be setting us up for a big fall; my wife was obviously going to be one of - if not the highlight of Kelvin’s evening.

For the first half of the show Kelvin concentrated on mostly people in the front row and failed badly.

So far, Kelvin had obviously been using standard ‘cold-reading’ techniques, in other words - intuitive guessing. There had been no sign of any ‘hot-reading’. Hot-reading is when the psychic has previously researched and obtained knowledge of a potential ‘target’ before the show started.

Before we went into the hall, my wife and I had discussed how we would react to any of his questions in the very unlikely event we were picked on. Obviously, we were to respond honestly, however, we were to give him nothing else other than the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’, either in words or body language, we were not going to ‘feed him’ information, we would make his ‘cold-reading’ as difficult as possible.

At last, not long before the half-time break, he turned to my wife. Coleen was now a head-and-shoulders picture on the big screen for all the audience to see. First, he asked Coleen if a woman’s first name (we can’t remember it now) meant anything to her. Coleen said “No’, He then added the surname of ‘Stokes’. Again it meant absolutely nothing to her. While he was saying this, he dramatically wrote the names on the whiteboard. Normally psychics don’t state names – only individual letters. ‘Your father has passed over’ he said. This was news to

Coleen as she had only talked to him a few days previously (would it be possible for us to sue Kelvin for creating unnecessary stress?) Where were all those stars coming from?

‘You are the reader in the family’ (what is that to do with connecting with spirits?) he stated. ‘No’ said Coleen, ‘my husband is’, and pointed to me (oops, she just verbally gave too much information away, now he knows the man beside her is her husband). He ended up asking a total of four questions and not obtaining a single hit. Curiously, during the whole evening he only used the whiteboard for Coleen.

He then asked for the Mic’ to be passed over to ME! ‘There must be a god up there’ I thought! Did Kelvin really know what a skeptic he was talking too? If he did, then was he savoring that moment too? There was an audible murmur from the crowd as some of them recognised sceptical me. Was this to be a battle of the Titans?

His first question/statement was that my parents were dead; as by that time my parents would then have been closing in on 100 years of age, I guess that was a reasonably safe guess on his part, rather than a psychic connection. He still got applause from the audience. He fired off two or three statements about my mother without luck. He stated that my mother had some unfinished business with me; I said ‘I doubt it’ (I had been back to England to see her a few months previously and at that time she knew she was dying of cancer). He also stated that she had a hard side to her. That was the furthest from the truth about my mum! (Since then, I asked my ex-wife about it and she just laughed).

He wasn’t getting very far with me so must have decided to give me away. However, before he could move on, I stated in a loud voice through the microphone to him that apart from one of the guesses, he hadn’t got much right! There was an audible gasp from around the hall.

‘I think it is time for a break’ he said, and unhappily walked off the stage. Immediately, the woman beside Coleen, leant in front of her and starting abusing me! ‘Why did you come here if you don’t believe, why did you come, you are spoiling it for everyone’ she said. Then, in front of me another woman turned around and abused me too. I was astonished at the vehemence in their voices. It didn’t seem to occur to these people that it was Kelvin that chose me, I did not push myself forward - I was just sitting there.

We lived through the short break with only one more piece of abuse. Kelvin came back onto the stage with applause from the audience. No smiles; he focused on me. ‘I know who you are’ he pouted. ‘You are the person that has The Puzzle Place (actually ‘Puzzling World’), well that is certainly one place I won’t be going to’. A round of applause exploded from the audience at this childish outburst. Somebody must have told him about me in the break, and, it wasn’t a spirit that told him. Before I could say any more, I was shouted down by what seemed a roar from his adoring fans, it felt that a large percentage of the audience were involved. They shouted out things like: shut up, get out, and other stuff. For the first time in my adult life I felt intimidated by mass public aggression against me. It made me uneasy. I thought we may be thrown out! Kelvin continued to scowl but said no more. Where had that cuddly young man gone?

It was time for me to say no more, so that is what I did.

Kelvin then ‘interviewed’ a couple more people but did not achieve any reasonable ‘hits’ Finally, he turned to a curly-headed elderly woman at the back of the hall; we could see her close-up on the big screen. Coleen turned to me and whispered that this woman, just like her, was also wearing a red top and had curly hair. On looking around the hall, amongst a sea of dull, wintry colours, there were only three women in red, and only two of those had curly hair. Could it be that this was a case of ‘hot-reading’ that had gone badly wrong, had Kelvin mixed up his women-in-red? Could it be that one of Kelvin’s ‘spies’ had mingled with the crowd before they entered the hall and had purposely set up a conversation with a woman wearing a distinctive and easily recognisable red top? Could it be that Kelvin had, in the hall, accidentally picked on my wife because she was also wearing red? What an incredible piece of bad luck for him (and good for me) that he picked the wrong woman?! What an amazing piece of bad luck he picked on my sceptical wife.

Suddenly all the pieces of the jigsaw came together for us: Before the show, outside the hall Kelvin’s spy-man must have had picked on a person that would be easily identifiable from the stage; Kelvin’s spy had then gone up to the balcony and could not pick out his intended woman-in-red as she was in the audience under the balcony out of sight from where he was viewing, so he had to believe that the only other woman with curly hair and in red in the whole hall - my wife - was his intended victim

He played the second woman-in-red like the master that he is supposed to be and she gave him all the help he could ever desire. For Kelvin’s fans this was absolute proof that he had special powers. Sadly for Kelvin, he had used up his best statements/information on my wife – the wrong woman in red. For the second woman he was left with most peculiar and very unspiritual statements such as: you have a wobbly dog on your car window, you have had a growth removed from your nose, and, you go to the gym. For him it was a great ending to finish off.

The show drew to an end and was rounded off by an amazingly loud round of applause from the audience.

Were Coleen and I the only skeptical people in the audience? I doubt it; I just think they were safely keeping their mouths shut. Coleen and I saw it as just a farcical manipulative show, couldn’t others see it too, or was it that we were just typical ‘closed-minded skeptics’? Why didn’t the believers wonder why Kelvin not only got so much wrong, but also, wondered what happened to all the spirits that were marked on the white-board that wished to communicate with Coleen? Kelvin soon conveniently forgot about them.

We thoroughly enjoyed our unusual night out.

Kelvin is still speaking for money nearly a decade on. Here eventfinder.co.nz has him sharing his wisdom at a High School.