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tips on spotting charlatan "psychics"

Setsurinvich

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does anyone know how one can detect fakery when looking at a "psychic" surgeon or the like? Are there ways to be able to learn how to spot slight of hand tricks?

For example here is a photo of a "psychic" surgeon that I once mentioned on this forum

http://culturacolectiva.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/cicloliterarii.jpg

It claims to be a photo of a pancreatic "surgery" but I as many of you guys have my doubts.

For example it looks like the "surgeon" is simply pressuring down on a point of the belly rather than cutting into a person. I don't think that's what a person's stomach looks like when its being cut can any surgeons confirm?

Also I don't think that's were a pancreas is located in a human body or what a pancreas even looks like.

Would those be signs of fakery that I just pointed out?
 
The best way to determine if a psychic surgeon is a fake is if they call themselves psychic surgeons.

Then, you know.
 
Resume said:
The best way to determine if a psychic surgeon is a fake is if they call themselves psychic surgeons.

Then, you know.
Click to expand...

I am aware but its to help debunk to those people that think its for real. Does my analysis make sense in light of the photo?
 
Setsurinvich said:
does anyone know how one can detect fakery when looking at a "psychic" surgeon or the like? Are there ways to be able to learn how to spot slight of hand tricks?

For example here is a photo of a "psychic" surgeon that I once mentioned on this forum

http://culturacolectiva.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/cicloliterarii.jpg

It claims to be a photo of a pancreatic "surgery" but I as many of you guys have my doubts.

For example it looks like the "surgeon" is simply pressuring down on a point of the belly rather than cutting into a person. I don't think that's what a person's stomach looks like when its being cut can any surgeons confirm?

Also I don't think that's were a pancreas is located in a human body or what a pancreas even looks like.

Would those be signs of fakery that I just pointed out?
Click to expand...

If you are asking what particular signs you can look for that a particular "psychic surgery" itself is fake, that's a difficult question to answer. The photos you run across are going to be staged well enough that you can't detect the trickery. Obviously, the "surgeon" is just pushing down on a point on the stomach and has chicken guts and blood filled ballons palmed away. The methods are well-known.

A photo isn't going to be enough all on it's own to debunk something to someone who truly believes. Hell, there isn't much that is going to sway a true believer.

I've always thought that the best way to debunk a psychic surgery is to pose as a true believer, arrange for one and film it. Then, right after the "cut" is made, the photographer should shove the "surgeon" out of the way and reveal that there is no cut and that his hands already have the guts and blood in them. It's a really simple trick; James Randi has a great expose of it in one of his books -can't remember which right now.
 
xjx388 said:
If you are asking what particular signs you can look for that a particular "psychic surgery" itself is fake, that's a difficult question to answer. The photos you run across are going to be staged well enough that you can't detect the trickery. Obviously, the "surgeon" is just pushing down on a point on the stomach and has chicken guts and blood filled ballons palmed away. The methods are well-known.

A photo isn't going to be enough all on it's own to debunk something to someone who truly believes. Hell, there isn't much that is going to sway a true believer.

I've always thought that the best way to debunk a psychic surgery is to pose as a true believer, arrange for one and film it. Then, right after the "cut" is made, the photographer should shove the "surgeon" out of the way and reveal that there is no cut and that his hands already have the guts and blood in them. It's a really simple trick; James Randi has a great expose of it in one of his books -can't remember which right now.
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Ok I understand but what about the points I brought up so they make sense in light of the photo I mentioned ?
 
You will make little headway with that method even if you become expert. The best way -- and there are times you will make little headway with this method -- is to know what confessed magicians, etc., can do. When someone presents an event as miraculous, put the ball firmly on their court by asking why you should believe something is supernatural when you have seen the same or better using tricks.
 
Garrette said:
You will make little headway with that method even if you become expert. The best way -- and there are times you will make little headway with this method -- is to know what confessed magicians, etc., can do. When someone presents an event as miraculous, put the ball firmly on their court by asking why you should believe something is supernatural when you have seen the same or better using tricks.
Click to expand...
I see what you mean. It's this one I mentioned bothered me personally because the person behind it was behind lots of nonsense and this undermines her craziness
 
Setsurinvich said:
I see what you mean. It's this one I mentioned bothered me personally because the person behind it was behind lots of nonsense and this undermines her craziness
Click to expand...

The problem is one magician-debunkers have always faced.
"Here's what I think you did."
"No, I didn't do that."
"But I can clearly see you are making the same motions."
"Yes, they appear to be the same, but they aren't really. It just looks the same."

The whole point of the trickery is to duplicate the appearance of no trickery at all. Because of this property - the real and the fake must look identical - it's only a pattern of behavior that adds mounting evidence of fraud. Occam's razorWP also helps here.

It's also worth noting how difficult it can be to "cross pollinate" a debunking. When debunking mediums was popular, magicians exposing the frauds were met with, "Of course that medium was bogus, but my preferred medium doesn't use trickery."

One way forward is to provisionally accept the fraud and ask why, if this person had this power, they don't use it in the way commonsense dictates? Why aren't they healing world leaders? Why aren't they spreading their techniques at a school for doctors? The fraudsters will have the lamest excuses for not doing what we'd all do if the miracle were real.
 
Why aren't they practicing at the Mayo Clinic? Johns Hopkins? Northwestern Memorial?
 
i see the point of you guys, but still... the photo shown its not what a pierced stomach should look like right? :)

I am asking because this story bothered me personally when I was younger
 
marplots said:
The problem is one magician-debunkers have always faced.
"Here's what I think you did."
"No, I didn't do that."
"But I can clearly see you are making the same motions."
"Yes, they appear to be the same, but they aren't really. It just looks the same."

The whole point of the trickery is to duplicate the appearance of no trickery at all. Because of this property - the real and the fake must look identical - it's only a pattern of behavior that adds mounting evidence of fraud. Occam's razorWP also helps here.

It's also worth noting how difficult it can be to "cross pollinate" a debunking. When debunking mediums was popular, magicians exposing the frauds were met with, "Of course that medium was bogus, but my preferred medium doesn't use trickery."

One way forward is to provisionally accept the fraud and ask why, if this person had this power, they don't use it in the way commonsense dictates? Why aren't they healing world leaders? Why aren't they spreading their techniques at a school for doctors? The fraudsters will have the lamest excuses for not doing what we'd all do if the miracle were real.
Click to expand...

This is true, but the argument isn't to say that because it can be faked all similar procedures must be faked (because then a video of surgery on a show like House MD would discredit real surgery). The argument is: because an indistinguishable fake can easily be made, this does not constitute sufficient evidence that anything extraordinary is happening.

It always comes back to standards of evidence. And for psychic surgery I can think of plenty of simple tests that one could go through to demonstrate the claimed powers. Eventually we return to the point that, rather than provide that evidence, all the surgeon provided was a video that could be easily faked.
 
Bladesman87 said:
It always comes back to standards of evidence. And for psychic surgery I can think of plenty of simple tests that one could go through to demonstrate the claimed powers. Eventually we return to the point that, rather than provide that evidence, all the surgeon provided was a video that could be easily faked.
Click to expand...

And that video, in turn, is likely to be all the evidence we ever get. Which is why the burden of proof is such a great principle.

"Prove I didn't do what I say" vs. "Prove you did."
 
Setsurinvich said:
I am aware but its to help debunk to those people that think its for real. Does my analysis make sense in light of the photo?
Click to expand...
Paradoxically the more you address the minutae of things like the look of the incision, the position of the pancreas and so on the more credibility the thing seems to get, almost seems to make it more believable. And practitioners and believers will always have an excuse for all your arguments.

I would take the tack that no one would allow this sort of surgery on themselves, such a thing in reality would be well nigh impossible. Yet there are loads of people who do just this as stage magic every day.

Show them this video and ask them whether they think the subject actually did remove his own heart -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjEaLsl1BuM

(Because that would be a little silly!)

Then the question is if removing a heart in this way is so obviously impossible why on earth would they believe it was possible to remove someone's pancreas in the same way?

Niall
 
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