Psychics fight over business leads to attack?

[Questioninggeller]

Connecticut psychic Janet Lee is being driven out of business by another psychic, only she doesn't know who it is, where they are, when it'll end, how it'll end, where they come from, etc. So she's having the police look into it.

Local psychic attacked in Greenwich
Connecticut Post
July 16, 2009
By John Nickerson, Frank MacEachern

After receiving threatening phone calls and being injured by a man during a midnight attack in Greenwich over the weekend, a local psychic says someone is trying to drive her out of business.

Janet Lee said she was taken to the hospital after being beaten by a man outside her office at 16 Greenwich Ave., in Greenwich, late Friday night. She also has an office at 565 Westport Ave., in Norwalk.

Four days before the attack, which left her with a black eye and a cut on her face, Lee reported to Norwalk police that a woman left several threatening phone messages focusing on her business and her son.

Norwalk and Greenwich police said they are investigating Lee's complaints.

In one of the messages the woman said, "This town is not big enough for the two of us. We want you to take down your sign," said Lee, who lives in Norwalk.
...
Norwalk police Sgt. Andre Velez said police are investigating Lee's complaint of harassing phone calls and are aware of the Greenwich investigation. He would not discuss the case further.

Lee said she has been a psychic in Norwalk for eight years and told people's futures in Greenwich for 10. Until 2004, she even had a two-year stint as a "promotional" psychic at Saks Fifth Avenue in Greenwich.

Lee, who says she has a large clientele and describes herself as a "life coach," said it is not unusual for her to receive crank calls. But these calls were different, she said.
...
Lee said she has heard that another psychic is coming into the area, but has no idea who it is.

Her psychic gifts are no help to her in this investigation, Lee said.

"I am not able to read for myself or my children. I can only see things for other people," Lee said.

Full: Connecticut Post

Per the last line shouldn't she "read" the stranger who attacked her or had her attacked?

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Though I generally do not support vandalism, I have ripped down and thrown out advertisements for psychics at my school. So much so that questions started being asked about why all the flyers for so and so service kept going missing. And a stern warning not to remove or destroy any flyers went up.

Having learned all I have learned about Sylvia Browne, I confess I have very, very little patience for these people.

Maybe the same thing is going on here.

Though think how funny it would be if it were a rival psychic.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

After receiving threatening phone calls and being injured by a man during a midnight attack in Greenwich over the weekend, a local psychic says someone is trying to drive her out of business.

Janet Lee said she was taken to the hospital after being beaten by a man outside her office at 16 Greenwich Ave., in Greenwich, late Friday night. ...

Four days before the attack, which left her with a black eye and a cut on her face, Lee reported to Norwalk police that a woman left several threatening phone messages focusing on her business and her son. ...

In one of the messages the woman said, "This town is not big enough for the two of us. We want you to take down your sign," said Lee, who lives in Norwalk. ...

Lee said she has heard that another psychic is coming into the area, ...

Having learned all I have learned about Sylvia Browne, I confess I have very, very little patience for these people. ...

Though think how funny it would be if it were a rival psychic.

Hilarious. [/sarcasm]It seems from the article that it is a rival psychic! And no psychic deserves to be physically attacked no matter how little patience you happen to have for their knowing or unwitting fraudulent activities!! Wouldn't you say there are more humane ways of dealing with them than physically attacking them and threatening their child?

And no, this attack probably won't work out for the long-term good because she can't tell who the attacker was. If anything, people who hear skeptics gloating and laughing will end up with more sympathy for psychics, or at least more interest in them due to the publicity!

 

[Foolmewunz]

Baby N,

Maybe you could just pay for a reading, since you seem to believe every word of the article, anyway.

Doesn't any of this get your spidey senses a-tingling?

The jury's still out on this, if you ask me. Mysterious threatening phone calls? Sinister new psychic coming to town to try to hijack her business. "This sucker pool's not big enough for the two of us." "Oh, yeah? Smile when you say that, pahdner."

I don't think anyone should be beaten up, either, but my sympathy ends at my borderline pacifism. Why is it a rival psychic and not a disgruntled customer? Ex-boyfriend? Random act of violence? Mugging?

Sheesh. I'm giving two bucks on "boyfriend smacked her around and she's shifting the blame to get some publicity out of it".

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Right, so you think she'd have her profession tarnished by making up a story that suggests psychics can be violent and sinister because she thinks it would be good for business? Well, stranger things have happened. But why would you automatically be inclined to disbelieve her, just because you don't like psychics?

Yes, it would seem strange that a rival psychic might worry there aren't enough gullible people to go around. What might make the difference is that she's quite well-known so she might be first choice for many. In any case, it seems grossly unfair that she should be the one on trial for this in this thread.

 

[tesscaline]

Right, so you think she'd have her profession tarnished by making up a story that suggests psychics can be violent and sinister because she thinks it would be good for business? Well, stranger things have happened. But why would you automatically be inclined to disbelieve her, just because you don't like psychics?

Yes, it would seem strange that a rival psychic might worry there aren't enough gullible people to go around. What might make the difference is that she's quite well-known so she might be first choice for many. In any case, it seems grossly unfair that she should be the one on trial for this in this thread.

To answer the bolded section: Because psychics make their living by lying to people.

 

[Sean84]

I say weigh them both against a duck!

 

[Foolmewunz]

To answer the bolded section: Because psychics make their living by lying to people.

Ditto that. Actually, I'd intended to include something along those lines in my original comment, but forgot.

BabyNemesis, you're normally much more creative than this. You don't think a psychic would think the publicity was good, that, oh, say, some OTHER BAD psychic was so threatened by her brilliance and great client relations that he (the other bad psychic - cue villain music, f-minor chord) would send goons to run her out of town?

She's a psychic. That means she's either delusional (and wouldn't think through whether or what impact the hoary tale has) or a professional liar and con artist. I'd tend to look askance at anything that comes out of her mouth, frankly.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

To answer the bolded section: Because psychics make their living by lying to people.

Psychics don't all realise they're deceiving people. See this story about someone who gave people psychic readings for years and genuinely believed she had a psychic gift before reading skeptical articles about cold reading and realising what she must have been doing without being that conscious of it: http://www.skepticreport.com/newage/confessionswoo.htm

I feel a bit silly now and think to myself, fancy you believed [you were a real psychic], silly cow, yet at the same time, had her childhood experiences with no-one actually explaining what was happening in a language you understand (hallucinations). Add to that, the fact of some cracking hits here and there, and I don't suppose it would be that hard to understand why people believe. I just know better now.

Besides, lying about some things doesn't mean you'll lie about everything. One of the principles of the legal system, for better or worse, is that juries won't be told all the instances of a crime someone on trial for a similar crime has committed in the past, lest it prejudice the jury's judgment about their likelihood of committing this one. So how much more should we reserve judgment when the person might not even be knowingly deceiving with her psychic activities, and when lying about one thing doesn't necessarily mean you're likely to lie about something totally different.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Well, I think Skeptichick gave you the economy version and I gave the fuller version, wherein I said, EITHER liars or delusional persons. You're covering the latter, and I concur. But whether the one or the other, it seems a good reason to take the article and her unproven complaints with a grain of salt unless (I won't say "until" because this story will quite logically die off) there's some corroboration.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

If we were the ones responsible for investigating the story, catching the perpetrators and questioning them, I would most wholeheartedly disagree with you! Thankfully we're not, so we can in fact ignore the story. But there are enough miscarriages of justice already without people further being assumed to be liars and their stories not investigated because of it.

Don't forget it's about making things safer for the community by catching the right people. If the police decided she was probably lying before even questioning her much, they might fail to follow up leads that would prevent others becoming victims. Imagine: "Oh, she's probably lying; I'd guess it was a random act of violence - there's nothing we can do". So they don't give her advice on getting calls traced and equipment to record calls. Harassment continues. Her son eventually gets hurt. You can't dismiss an allegation just because the person making it doesn't have an exemplary character!

As for your idea that the allegation might be the work of a con-artist who knows it would be good for business, it would be good for business after any perpetrators have been caught, not before, surely. Who's going to want to go to the offices of someone who's being persistently threatened with violence? Who would risk the possibility that the people threatening the violence might commit an attack while they're there and they might be hurt in the process? After the perpetrator's been caught, that's the time people are most likely to flock to her in sympathy. But that certainly isn't going to happen if instead of a perpetrator being caught, she's penalised for wasting police time! If this is the work of a con-artist, the con-artist really isn't that bright! But I'm sure con-artists have done stupider things.

Still, I think it's very important to reserve judgment, for the reasons I've specified.

 

[alfaniner]

The title of this thread has me imagining the two psychics standing across from each other in a field.

"Zap!"

"Missed me! Zap!"

"Missed me, too! Zap, zap!"

"Ha, ha! Missed again! Zap!"

"Missed... hey, wait a minute... How can we miss when we're standing two feet away from each other?"

"Yeah. Maybe there's nothing it it?"

(both) "Nahhh! Zap! Zap!! Zap!!!"

 

[Baby Nemesis]

That reminds me of the thing I linked to a couple of days ago in another thread, about the witchdoctor in India doing all kinds of black magic to try to kill an atheist on live Indian television, while the atheist just sat there calmly and laughed at the most outlandish things. Here's an account: Indian Tantrik Tries to Kill Man on Television with Black Magic.

The atheist wanted to prove it didn't work. The show got an audience of millions, many of whom might have believed in it before.

 

[EHocking]

That reminds me of the thing I linked to a couple of days ago in another thread, about the witchdoctor in India doing all kinds of black magic to try to kill an atheist on live Indian television, while the atheist just sat there calmly and laughed at the most outlandish things. Here's an account: Indian Tantrik Tries to Kill Man on Television with Black Magic.

The atheist wanted to prove it didn't work. The show got an audience of millions, many of whom might have believed in it before.

The Television challenge (all in Indian, I'm afraid).
Part 1^[YouTube]Part 2^[YouTube]The final showdown.
Part 3^[YouTube]

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Though I generally do not support vandalism, I have ripped down and thrown out advertisements for psychics at my school. So much so that questions started being asked about why all the flyers for so and so service kept going missing. And a stern warning not to remove or destroy any flyers went up.

If they're going to make that much fuss, perhaps instead you could ask whoever gives permission for adverts to be put up if you could advertise a website warning against scams. If they say yes, you could advertise the address of one where there are warnings against psychic scams, next to the psychics' adverts. It wouldn't necessarily have to specifically warn against psychic scams so you didn't look too combative. But it could perhaps be something like This page with links to advice on all kinds of scams, besides several to information about psychic ones: Links to Advice on Consumer Protection - Scams, Rogue Traders, Loan Sharks and Psychic Frauds.

 

[Psi Baba]

the clod of wheat flour dough. He kneaded it and powdered it with mysterious ingredients

Mmmmm, donuts.

 

[skyhand]

As much as I dislike what she does, I have to feel a little sorry for her. If she is being targeted by someone unknown for any reason, it has to be extremely frightening. There are so many unknowns for her. The person knows my number, my place of "work" and where I live. Am I safe in my house or anywhere? Let the police determine if it is a false report and if it is throw the book at her.

It is interesting how they can't use their powers in their own lives. Does this give them doubt in their abilities or is it just the rules?

 

[Fnord]

Dark forces are definately at work...

(That's a straight line, folks! Jump on it!)

 

[Foolmewunz]

As much as I dislike what she does, I have to feel a little sorry for her. If she is being targeted by someone unknown for any reason, it has to be extremely frightening. There are so many unknowns for her. The person knows my number, my place of "work" and where I live. Am I safe in my house or anywhere? Let the police determine if it is a false report and if it is throw the book at her.

It is interesting how they can't use their powers in their own lives. Does this give them doubt in their abilities or is it just the rules?

It's the rules (of the scam). The I Can't Use My Powers to the Benefit of Myself or My Family ruse is used to explain why they aren't winning the lottery every day or multi-billionaires, how come they get hit by cars like other people, etc....

It's generally, if not spoken directly, got a religious connotation to me - that some higher power (the Big G, generally) has given them this power for good and they aren't allowed to exploit it, blah blah blah. Except in making videos, plugging books, selling $400 readings, and staging events at auditoria, of course.

 

[Ferguson]

Meh, if you're in a criminal enterprise, you should expect competition. I have no sympathy for her.