Baffling even for sceptics

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 11

Baffling even for sceptics

Radio review by

LIZ ROWE

The Wellington clairvoyant, Mary Fry, has Joan’s “spiritual friends” gathered about her. Various “friends” have offered advice and now an older woman is communicating with Joan. “I’m going back a little way here," Mary Fry tells Joan. “I’ve got a lady presenting herself — I don’t know whether it’s your first name or your middle name, but it’s connected with her anyway.” On the other end of the telephone Joan laughs and says she knows who Mary Fry is talking about. “She’s smiling with me and showing me your hands.

Okay, so you use those don’t you?”

“She’s also showing me an old upright piano she used to play. She’s just saying for the memory that what you believe is true.”

Joan is obviously delighted and hangs up confident she has heard from dead friends and relatives. Radio New Zealand’s first nationwide “Tonight Show” with Mary Fry (ZB network) last Tuesday evening brought dozens of such satisfied reponses from callers.

Every fortnight Radio New Zealand is inviting people from all over New Zealand to call the station and “take advantage of Mary Fry’s abilities to offer help and advice.” Unlike most in her profession, Mary Fry does not have to touch a piece of clothing, see a photo or have any other type of physical contact in order to communicate with “spirit friends.” Her regulai\show on Wellington’s 2ZB has already brought a fantastic response, according to the station.

“As a clairvoyant I am in communication with my own helpers, my own guides, and that is where any information comes from,” she says by way of introduction to listeners.

“It is not from myself, but from those people who have the well-being of the

individual who I may be speaking to in their hands.”

Mary Fry says that she has been talking to these people all her life — only recently realising that others did not do the same. For those more familiar with orthodox religion, these spiritual helpers are the equivalent of the “guardian angel — those loving souls who want to help where they can,” she says. About 15 years ago Mary Fry realised she had these unusual powers.

She and a friend were reading a Christchurch newspaper and noticed an advertisement for a spiritual group meeting. They attended the meeting, found it very enlightening, and were then told the group had never advertised. “That was an indication to me it was the right place for me to be.”

After suitably incredulous murmurings, the host, Kevin Soster, introduces the first caller, Leslie, who wants to know whether she made the right decision with her estranged husband about their child.

Mary Fry starts talking without the slightest hesitation. Leslie definitely made a correct decision there. Leslie has shown the

strength of character she had when first married. The potential is there for Leslie’s separation to come back together. Molly, asking about her daughter and son (both living), is surprised to get a message from the children’s dead father.

“I’ve got a Dad calling out here on this link to you love. He’s saying that boy’s all right. “Dad’s okay love. You know that nasty pain he was in before he went? (Molly murmurs in understanding.) There’s none of that — he was a little stooped before he passed and this man is standing so upright. The stomach is flat again and he’s patting it, he just loves it.”

Even to an almost-con-firmed sceptic, this is all a little mind-boggling. The most disconcerting thing about Mary Fry’s show is her lack of hesitation when answering callers and the confident way she talks about the “friends.” There is no “wait a minute, I’m getting something — it’s a little hazy.. routine.

She occasionally seeks an affirmative response from the caller, but this seems to be her way of checking that the caller understands what she is talking about, without giving away too much personal information.

For instance, Cathy wants

to be told about her nephew. “Here we’re needing a lot of healing,” starts Mary Fry. “But if I say to you there is no lasting debilitation, would you understand me?” (Affirmative response). “It is important for those of his family to know that. I am seeing that body being healed and coming back again whole. I’ve got a kind of tragic situation here and a bit of panic with him at that time of — can I say — impact.” Listeners are left wondering what the circumstances of this “tragic situation” really are. A young man killed in a car accident perhaps? Most discussions are fairly ' self-explanatory, without being too personal, but it would be interesting to know more background information.

However, that is obviously not the point of the show. Entertaining it undoubtedly is, but whether or not one believes she is in communication with the dead or distant would best be proved by a telephone call.

Sceptics with any ounce of curiosity might be tempted to give Mary Fry a call on her next show, on April 9, but beware. “I like working with sceptics because they question — and they have every right to question,” she says.