The Dark Secrets exhibition, at London’s The Vaults, is a must-see for anyone in touch with their spooky side. But at the special opening séance event, all was not what it seemed…
Matteo Borrini is many things – an academic at Liverpool John Moores University, a forensic anthropologist and a talented performer. But he’s definitely not a psychic.
In the darkness of his lair though, deep below London’s Waterloo Station, it’s easy to forget that he doesn’t have mystical abilities. I join him for a trip beyond the veil…
Victorians’ secrets
It’s fair to say I don’t believe in anything spooky. Call me cynical if you like – I see it more as accepting the real world is interesting enough.
But when I’m invited to a Victorian-style séance, to mark the opening of the Dark Secrets exhibition at London venue The Vaults, I’m keen straight away. I don’t think I’m going to contact the dead, but I’ll probably be in for a good show.
From the beginning, it’s clear that Italian-born Dr Borrini is a man with incredible power. Standing in the candlelit darkness, he asks the small crowd in front of him for volunteers to hand over a personal item.
It needs to be tiny enough to pop into a pouch the size of a Post-it note, without showing it to him. Immediately, three women – including me – stand up and give him our engagement rings. I’m not sure what’s just happened as we head to the stage, where he feels the ‘auras’ of the jewellery to match it to the correct owners.
Over the next hour, he takes us through a series of “experiments” showing the techniques used by Victorian spiritualists.
He’s got audience members contacting their late pets and using psychic intuition to pick out the survivors from photos of passengers on the Titanic.
There’s one thing he won’t do though, he tells us. “I will never do this with any of your dead relatives.” For a moment I think of my late granny, who passed away in May, and feel slightly disappointed.
The cracks in my armour get wider when he picks me out to demonstrate automatic writing – a technique used by mediums to ‘communicate with the dead’. I’ve been hypnotised before, when I was pregnant with my son, and I’m apparently very susceptible.
I’m not sure exactly what happens at this point. One moment I’m looking at a gap between my fingers, the next I seem to have scribbled all over a pad of paper. I know I’ve not been communing with spirits – I’ve just been hypnotised. But for the audience, it probably looks pretty uncanny.
People want to believe in this likable man, who has a kind word for everyone that takes part in the show. He insists there are letters hidden in my random scrawlings, and a volunteer implausibly agrees.
At the end of the performance, he explains what he’s been up to. “At night I put away my academic robes and I’m an illusionist,” he says. “And I often find people pretending to contact the dead.
“They’re using the pain of people trying to contact their loved ones, the pain of their lost relatives to scam them. And they’re using the same techniques I’ve used here today.”
I’m reminded of the missing persons cases of Jay Slater and Nicola Bulley, both of whom attracted the attention of psychics. But when I catch up with Dr Borrini after the show, he tells me he’s not thinking of anyone in particular.
I’m surprised to learn he’s a spiritual man – a Roman Catholic. “I believe in souls, and I believe that souls are eternal,” he says. “But I also believe that it’s impossible to contact the spirits of the dead.”
Locked in the vaults
Dr Borrini’s séance was a special event – but if you’re into the eerie, there’s plenty of occult memorabilia to see at the Dark Secrets exhibition:
- · The Cabinet of Cursed Dolls features the largest collection ever displayed in Europe, all of them absolutely horrible.
- Tsantsa, or shrunken heads, created by the Shuar tribes of the Amazon as war trophies and ritual objects.
- A ceremonial staff and other artefacts belonging to notorious occultist Aleister Crowley.
- A collection of “cursed” sports memorabilia, including a jersey from England’s 1966 World Cup.
- A rare 19 th century vampire hunting kit containing crosses, stakes, pistols and vials of holy water.
Dark Secrets: The Esoteric Exhibition is on display at The Vaults, London until May 31, 2026. Visit darksecretsexhibition.com/london for tickets.
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