Confused Woman Accidentally Embarrasses "Psychic"

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http://mylespower.co.uk/2014/05/18/a-rather-embarrassing-night-for-psychic-sally-in-middlesbrough/

Oops...

South Park got it right on cold reading

That's hilarious.

Sylvia Browne predicted she would live to be 88. She died last year at the age of 77. lol owned.

Number of psychics who correctly predicted the fate of kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard: Zero.

Number of psychics who correctly predicted the fate of the Cleveland kidnap victims: Zero. (Sylvia Browne insisted that one of the victims was dead, after which the victim's mom committed suicide.)

While we're on the topic of Browne, let's not forget how she got owned by George Noory of Coast to Coast AM (radio talk show dealing with the paranormal and conspiracies). When word came that trapped miners in West Virginia had all been rescued alive, Brown was on the air, and quickly took credit. When word came 30 minutes later that all but one of the miners was dead (and the initial report was erroneous), Browne was STILL blabbering to Noory about her "correct prediction". On the air, LIVE! Oops. Noory apparently threw her out of the studio in a rage.

Forgive the sweeping generalisation here but all psychics and mediums are at best deranged fantasists. At their worst they're parasites that prey on very vulnerable people.

VERY FEW truly believe their own press releases. They know it's a con, and deliberately perpetrate the con. A lot of times, the motive is money. Google "cursed money scam". It works thusly: a mark asks a psychic why he/she always has bad luck, The psychic tells him/her that they have been cursed, that the curse has to do with their money, so the mark needs to bring the psychic the mark's life savings-cash, of course-for "cleansing". The psychic then skips town with hundreds of thousands of dollars after the heat turns up. In some versions, marks are told to buy the psychic luxury goods to lift the curse. A small fraction of psychics have other motives, such as a reliable income stream. Those ones don't get caught, typically. A handful may truly believe that they have psychic powers.

Great link, thanks for sharing.

Ah, this is why I like the show, The Mentalist because it shows some of the tricks these con artists play on their marks.

This kind of thing happens I suppose, part of why I don't really think this kind of thing should be a 'paid' service unless someone is really that sharp that they can really help people by quitting their day job.

My sense of this topic - like anything that goes outside of reductive materialism; the proof of the pudding is in the eating, regardless of how many laboratories have combed over the ingredients, tried to call it french toast or corn grits, etc.. My advice, if you ever do find a pro-rate psychic giving free readings in a PR situation try em out and see what happens.

"Psychic Sally" appears to be rather well-known in the UK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Morgan_(psychic)

I am pretty sure the parents of the kidnapped children that Browne guessed wrong on got a free reading, since Browne also was one of the more famous guessers due to her appearance on daytime talk shows.

That is what it really is: a guess. And guessing such stuff about grieving families' loved ones is especially sick, since in no way did Browne or the other guessers who claim to talk to the dead or read whatever-it-is explicitly claimed it was 'for entertainment purposes only,' which even if they did, I still think it is horrible to do.

This thread needs more Derren Brown.

A dash of Carl Sagan wouldn't hurt either.

EDIT: I know Sagan is dead, I wasn't suggesting anyone try 'channelling' him. (though it would be REALLY impressive)