I secretly recorded a Clairvoyant medium...

[sophia8]

If this was at a spiritualist church, how can you be sure it wasn't a hot reading as opposed to a cold one? Is there some reason to assume that the medium was not acquainted with the church members?

Some of the reading almost certainly was hot. In my experience, the same bunch of people go along to their local Spiritualist church week after week - much as in any church, it's a social occasion for them. (And yes, the bulk of them are elderly.) In addition, the same mediums make the round of the local churches, month after month. The mediums usually socialise with the congregation before and after the service, so they get plenty of opportunities to know people and pick up information.
This particular medium sounds pretty incompetent, though. I've sat through much better readings than this.

EDIT:

"Jimmy, don't wear the red silk thongs to Senga's wedding. Her sister disnae know you're gay and she'll try to get your kilt aff."

Though nothing as good as that!

 

[Azrael 5]

Classic closed-minded sceptic question, you sad , deluded person.

When I ask people who say they can contact spirit (the collective singular is fashionable), I get answers like this:-
"A spirit is a fragmentary entity, often confused about its identity , its whereabouts, its nature. It may not be able to give us clear answers."

This might be so. But I note inconsistencies. The spirit often seems able to give the psychic detailed information about it's time on Earth, but cannot give elementary data to the sceptical observer via the psychic . For example, if a psychic is able to see and talk to a spirit, which is in turn able to see him, it ought to be able to read the number I have on my palm in large red felt tip- and to pass that number to the psychic. But it can't. Why is this?

Nor do these entities seem to acquire any new data post mortem. No spirit has ever (to my knowledge) passed on a new law of physics for example.

Listening to that medium, not one piece of actual information (in Shannon's sense) was "passed on". All the "evidence" he repeatedly commented on consisted of vague and short descriptions of common items of local culture.

Why never one clear, unambiguous message- "Jimmy, don't wear the red silk thongs to Senga's wedding. Her sister disnae know you're gay and she'll try to get your kilt aff."

I've seen/heard clairvoyants claim that spirit is stood next to their relative at a reading.Like you said I'd love to be the one who said "what am I holding?"
One day I will do this or better to get a woman to do it(more likely to suck in the medium)at a clairvoyant show.Wonder what their response would be?

 

[Soapy Sam]

One day I will do this or better to get a woman to do it(more likely to suck in the medium)at a clairvoyant show.Wonder what their response would be?

"There you go again with the closed minded sceptic questions".

 

[Azrael 5]

"There you go again with the closed minded sceptic questions".

Well you know I just never get any answers!!

 

[sthomson]

One day I will do this or better to get a woman to do it(more likely to suck in the medium)at a clairvoyant show.Wonder what their response would be?

Aww, now I want to go on Montel and ask Sylvia, "What was de Fermat's proof to his own 'Last Theorem'?" Surely it rests heavily on his mind, even after death.

 

[Big Les]

I hate the use of 'do you understand' by these cold readers. I wonder how often the dupes say 'yes', meaning they understand the question - even though the actual answer to the question might be 'no'. Before they can insert the 'no' answer, the quick-talking reader has already marked the hit and gone on to the next question.

Just one of many spot-on observations by Marc Wootton when he did his Shirley Ghostman character was the camp, patronising way he would say "d'yunderstand?" after every statement.

Even more annoying though is Colin Fry (and his pet monkey Tony Stockwell's) "would you please understand for me?". It's not even English, and it really points up that the information is coming from the client, NOT the reader.

 

[ynot]

Hi everyone. First post (but long time follower of Randi)

I'm currently writing my dissertation on spiritualist mediums - outlining the methods used, studying a history of, and asking other questions.

Anyway, last night I attended a spiritualist church here in Scotland and discretely recorded the service.

You can download the mp3 here:

[Hmm, seems like I can't post the link - can someone PM me, and I'll give the link to them. They can post it here]

I'm in the process of transcribing it. I'm trying to analyse it as a cold reading - but some information (names in particular) are a bit too accurate. Not the names at the start of the readings- I mean, I could go in front of 60 people and claim to be hearing a message from "Agnes", but after he's picked a subject, he seems to get quite a lot of names accurately.

I'd love to hear your thoughts - or if anyone can spot a cold reading technique straight off the bat, please let me know.

Thanks.

Hi and welcome. Have you seen this clip of a "psychic" being secretly recorded? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLI1zjrSoPk

Despite being so concusively exposed, she is currently touring New Zealnd with set-out shows.

 

[Soapy Sam]

ynot- there's an overwhelming similarity between the woman in your video and the medium in r2builder's tape. Both say repeatedly that "I can only say what I'm told".

It seems to me there are three possibilities. (with possible combinations).
1. Both people are cynical frauds and know it.
2. Both are absolutely genuine psychic mediums receiving actual external messages from some source.
3. Both are absolutely genuine people, who are generating messages subconsciously which they consciously think are external.

My own bias leads me to reject option 2 as nonsense- for a start because they are humans with human senses and clearly are neither hearing nor seeing these spirit messages, as nobody else standing alongside can see or hear them. So the messages are "seen" or "heard" internally. Or to put it another way, they are imagined.

My own nature- and here I admit to maybe being more of a softie than James Randi - leads me to prefer option 3.

I suspect that the delusion between medium and audience is two way. The medium has been fooled into taking the messages as real and external by the fact that the listeners take them seriously. The listeners take them seriously because the medium exudes self belief. Mutual reinforcement. The woman states this herself. People kept coming to her. Eventually , she started charging them.

Exactly the same effect will lead a class of schoolkids to adjust their estimate of the length of a bit of string to converge on a group mean. We believe what the people around us believe. Ask any advertising executive.

I think it's the same effect of subconscious leakover into the conscious that fools reiki and other "energy" healers into thinking they have a psychic gift. Actually, their subconscious feeds them thoughts about the health of the client (right or wrong really doesn't matter, but sometimes, especially with common problems, they will be right). Instead of realising they have good observation skills, they conclude they have magical skills. In reality, they are internally generating messages- this time about health because that's where their interest lies. But these are (IMO) exactly the same kind of message the medium is generating, just differently visualised.

I know this is pure opinion, but I base it on watching similar people at work. Sure, the Sylvia Brownes of the world are crooks, pure and simple, but I suspect they all started this way- confusing internal, unconscious messages with external. real data, exposing their confusion to others, who feed them back belief and so set their own mistaken belief like concrete. Thereafter the whole thing is self reinforcing. Along comes a sceptical researcher with a bucket of cold water and he is naively suprised by the vehemence with which both sides defend what they passionately believe to be true.

As sceptics, we must be like lawyers- assume innocence until guilt is proven. There's wrong and there's consciously wrong. One is error, the other is evil. We have to be careful who we accuse of what.

The fact that a woman living on a pension finds people keep asking her questions and are willing to pay for it does not make her a crook if she actually thinks she is delivering a service. But there will come a day when she takes the fee knowing she has "made stuff up". At that point she will start waving the "just for entertainment" flag. From that moment on, she's a crook.

 

[Reno]

I'm in Irvine, Ayrshire. We have a famous local psychic that does the rounds here called Sally Buxton. She claims that all the ticket money goes to charity. If any of the other Scots in here would like to arrange a get-together for one of her shows where we might ask some hard questions, I'd be interested.

 

[Rolfe]

"A spirit is a fragmentary entity, often confused about its identity , its whereabouts, its nature. It may not be able to give us clear answers."

It's all so bloody depressing. I mean, if you believe in an afterlife, can't you make it a bit more attractive than this? I don't think it's even anywhere close to standard Christian teaching on the afterlife - I'm thinking of that bit in the Brahms Requiem - "die gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand, und keine Qual ruhret sie an...."

Hang on, I'll google an English version - ah, got something. "For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them." I don't recognise the reference there, it says "Mis.3:1-3", I suspect it somewhere in the Apocrypha in that case.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure there's nothing about the souls of the righteous wandering about in a confused, fragmentary form, trying (and failing) to communicate through a bunch of suburban weirdos.

Rolfe.

PS. BTW, I'm in Peeblesshire, the Edinburgh side. This forum really is lousy with Scots, so you'll get plenty people who can understand anything you care to throw out.

 

[Rolfe]

Wasn't Jambo (of blessed memory) into some sort of psychic scene in Coatbridge? Your recording wasn't anywhere near the "twin cities of the plain", was it?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

But there will come a day when she takes the fee knowing she has "made stuff up". At that point she will start waving the "just for entertainment" flag. From that moment on, she's a crook.

Calling Chillzero in Aberdeen, here. She has some personal stuff she might be prepared to share about this.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Haven't you got a cow's bottom to be sticking things up? We taxpayers don't wish to support your internet habit during working hours.

If you want to be depressed, just google combos of "Scotland , paranormal, psychic, spirit". The whole place is a hotbed of hogwash.

Reno If the woman is genuinely giving to charity, I'd prefer another target, but the idea of a JREF (unannounced) visit to a medium has merit. Trouble is the churches like Berkeley Street in Glasgow ARE churches, with a regular congregation - and an influx of strange faces will attract instant attention.

(ETA- better perhaps a two person visit to the same medium in different places?)

Rolfe- ever considered attending SSPR lectures? First Thursday of the month, 7:30 pm in the Boyd Orr.
(Science building, University Ave., Glasgow).
Tomorrow night it's Prof Bernard Carr on "Can Science accommodate psychic experience? (like why did my pc suddenly go BOLD just then? Spooky). £4 on the door , members free. I'll be there and Lord Muck O' Gentry sometimes attends. The organisers generally retreat to consort with spirits in the Rubaiyat, though the "Three Judges" has better beer.

Anyone else interested, I'll be the baldy bloke with glasses and a black backpack.

I'm highlighting this in case any other Scots might spot it. While I'm not happy about SSPR methodology, these are at least people willing to look at such issues. I feel they badly need a scepticism injection and if anyone here is interested in joining the society, please do. The SSPR is led by Archie Roy, ex astronomy professor , currently teaching a night school course on the paranormal as part of Glasgow University's adult ongoing education programme. (Night school). If you agree , disagree, or have an attitude at all, join the SSPR and make your point. There are some fine (if not entirely sceptical) people there.http://www.sspr.co.uk/

Oh- and for general amazement- a list of spiritualist churches in Scotland.
http://www.lighthousespiritualcentre.ca/Churches/churchscotland.html

 

[Big Les]

Sam, I don't know how you do it. I wish I had the stones to join you.

Also, there is another option for your possibilities, which is that they do, deep down, know that they aren't really psychic, but they've superficially convinced themselves of it - they're kidding themselves. I think this is actually more common than you might think -Uri Geller seems to fit the profile. I know this is speculation, but I think he started out well aware that he was basically a mentalist, albeit self-trained, but the boosts to his ego over the years have led him to believe for most intents and purposes, that he's genuine.

I know that I've been able to kid myself that something is the case or that I'm something I'm not, by compartmentalising and rationalising ways around it. People in positions of power start to believe their own hype because of that very position and because they surround themselves with people who won't challenge them. Thus the only challengers are outside, are "other", non-believers, people trying to drag you down, and therefore not worth listening to.

There's a lot of psychology going on that I can't even begin to understand or provide evidence for, but bottom line it that I think it's more complicated than just fraudsters and those who 100% believe in their abilities. Some people are both, and need "waking up". Or a dry slap, one of the two.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Les, I'm not out for a fight (with believers I mean). It's unproductive, pointless and unpleasant. Believe me, there really are some fine folk in the SSPR and a drink with them is no chore. They're serious about what they do. I think they are profoundly in error, but that's why I'd like to see more sceptics as members, to break the mutual confirmation cycle you mention and get people thinking from more directions. I think it would be good for all concerned. If there is anything to the paranormal it needs researched and if sceptics sit back and leave it to non sceptics, the result is unlikely to please us. If there is nothing there (my own view), then we need to get in the field and demonstrate it to the non sceptics.

Personally, I feel what really is there- and is worth finding out about- is the mind . Minds manipulate energy and matter indirectly through hands and tools. They manipulate people through communication.

Sceptics can learn from non sceptics too. It can be surprising when you first hear non sceptics using exactly the same words to criticise the sceptical view as sceptics use on theirs. (" But, that's MY line!)

The lectures can be interesting too. Sheldrake's on in the new year, for example. It's a good night out. Of course the members are mostly believers in the paranormal. What fascinates me is how different their individual reasons and stories are- and also what the common elements are. As mixed a bag as JREF.
I think post 28 above hints where I'm coming from on the neuro / psych issue. I agree with you that behaviour fits a spectrum and that external influences shove us along that spectrum. I suspect underlying neural mechanisms though.



nb- Lest anyone is baffled by the "cow's bottom" comment above- Rolfe is a Vet.

 

[Rolfe]

Haven't you got a cow's bottom to be sticking things up? We taxpayers don't wish to support your internet habit during working hours.

I have a late coffee break. And I was waiting for the PM technician to set up the gear - actually, an aborted calf foetus to dissect.

Tomorrow should be fun, I get to carve a whole lamb in front of a bunch of first year agriculture students, to let them see what goes where. It's always the tough rugger-playing guys who keel over first. Well, unless the vice comes back from being serviced, I won't take the brain out. Shame. (Got the corpse already, some idiot baa-lamb broke a leg yesterday afternoon and had to be put down. Well, it's an ill wind....)

Rolfe- ever considered attending SSPR lectures? First Thursday of the month, 7:30 pm in the Boyd Orr.
(Science building, University Ave., Glasgow)....

Ah, the Boyd Orr. They built that during my first term at Uni and we got to be the first lot who actually took classes in it, in the summer term. The snagging list was about as long as the NIST report.

I'm not sure I'd go near Archie Roy on a bet, but if anyone else cares to, I'm dying to hear what goes on.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

He's a fine chap and a good lecturer. What I find intriguing about folk like this is how he can diverge so widely from my views on one subject, while being practically a role model in much else. This of course makes me question my own views (no bad thing), but I've yet to be impressed by any of his "evidence" for post mortem survival I've heard - a major interest of Roy's. But I'd suspect his views and your own on this might be closer to each other than either would be to mine. (Though materialist that I am, I still prefer my lamb to be dissected by Ramsay's of Carluke at some remove from my kitchen).

Incidentally, a note about ttomorrow's speaker at the SSPR=
Professor Bernard Carr, M.A., Ph.D., read mathematics as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. For his PhD he studied the first second of the Universe, working under Stephen Hawking. He was then elected to a Fellowship at Trinity and subsequently spent a year travelling around America as a Lindemann Fellow before taking up a Senior Research Fellowship at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. In 1985 he moved to the University of London, where he is now Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary & Westfield College. He has held Visiting Professorships at various institutes in North America and also Japan. His professional area of research is cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, with particular interest in such topics as the early universe, dark matter and the anthropic principle. However, he also has a long-standing interest in the interface between science and religion and in the connection between mind and physics. He is particularly interested in extending the current paradigm of physics to incorporate consciousness and associated mental phenomena. For many years he has been an active member of the Society for Psychical Research, currently serving as both its Education Officer and Chairman of its Research Activities Committee. He is also a member of the Scientific and Medical Network.

- not your common or garden "woo".

 

[Rolfe]

What do you have against Chapman's?

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Actually, I was a John Barr boy.
But I survived.

 

[r2builder]

Didn't Archie Roy certify Gordon Smith as the 'real deal' ?
I can remember hearing G Smith say that on a radio interview with Derren Brown. I'll try to find the mp3...

Thanks to everyone who has put forward their thoughts on this recording. I still intend to keep the exact location a secret in order to protect the clients' identities. I have nothing but sympathy for them... and also to avoid any litigious court battle with the Church.

That Deb Webber video was horrible. After wiping the vomit from my keyboard, I intend to look into her further. She seems deluded rather than being a fraud - although she must be following some sort of guaranteed pattern in order to be as successful as she is.

I'm taking the Finches reading as the one to study in depth. Listening to it, I can pretty much guarantee he's going in cold - and the woman actually started crying half way through... even though she wasn't entirely sure if 'Margaret' was dead. For the 7 year old boy - Callum & Andrew were in the top 5 baby names for Scotland 7 years ago. Convenient. I can then link this all in with the statistics section in Ian Rowland's book (as well as other points he made which clearly fit into one of Rowland's catagories) and be done with it. I've noticed it's such a cop out - when he makes an incorrect statement, but then says "well, it'll happen within the next few weeks." Aargh.

I wonder if I should go back next week, or if they'll already be on to me... I might get lynched.