Today I'm going to tackle a topic I thought wouldn't need to be tackled, but it's come back into the mainstream in America. Psychics. Slyvia Brown, John Edwards, Peter Popoff....what do these people have in common? Well, first of all they all claim to be psychic. Also, they are all full of shit.
In the 1930's a Duke University experiment gave the theory of ESP, or extrasensory perception, popularity and credibility by testing subjects with guessing the shapes on special playing cards. This led to the government allowing a study to be taken using tax payers money. For 27-29 years the CIA financially supported research of this psychic ability and cost us around 20 million dollars. The results: There was no psychic ability presented by ANYONE IN THE ALMOST 30 YEARS OF RESEARCH!!!
Fine, we lost 20 million dollars as a society. Not that bad, except for the fact that it was complete bullshit. It didn't hurt anyone at all, just took money out of our pockets.
So lets turn to psychics. In this day and age we are still using psychic detectives to solve crimes. Also, to this day, not one psychic has helped a case at all. Why would people offer help when they know they don't know anything? Simple. Financial gain. Imagine a father who just lost a child. A random 'psychic' comes up to him and claims that he has contacted his child and can provide information to where they are. The desperate father, like any good parent, agrees since he'd do anything to see them again and pays the psychic some money to conduct his 'research'. If they provide any facts that appear to be of help they are heralded in the media and can use this fame to sell books, videos, and other items. If they don't help at all they sink away with the money the father gave them.
The worst part? The father was filled with false hope.
Another form of psychic behavior would be the simple Tarot Card Reader. They look at the person they are 'reading' and determine what they are like in outside life. A business suit wearing man is obviously wealthy or overworked, thusfore the cards read the same thing. If the man is wearing welfare clothing and smelling of cheap whiskey then he must be down on his luck and looking for work, and behold! The cards say the same thing. Ofcourse the cards don't say a damn thing, it's all a matter of appearance's that brings the reader to falsify the card's message.
What do these poor saps lose? Anywhere from 10 to 150 dollars a reading. Not a big deal. After all it's just a cheap gimmick to entertain, but the psychics would never admit that they are just reading your posture, attire, and behavior. That means that they are lying to you about their 'abilities' to scam money off of you.
But the worst is also the least noticed. The psychics who can talk to the dead via telepathy. This includes the biggest douche of the universe (John Edwards) and an extremely disgusting asshole name Peter Popoff. Let's start with the most disgusting, shall we?
Peter Popoff is a Christian Minister who gained popularity in the 1980's by correctly telling audience members their addresses and ailments without ever having met them before. Those who stop there would assume God was talking to him telepathically, which was untrue. Infact, his wife collected the information of audience members before the show and told her husband, via earpiece, about certain audience members during the live tapings. James Randi uncovered this by bringing a transmitter recorder to a presentation and discovering what was being said over the headpiece. One graphic and disgusting segment featured Popoff approaching an aging African American woman, this is what his wife said over the earpiece unedited....
"Now walk to the back. Yeah, see that big fat Nigger? Go over to her and keep your hands off those tits! I'm watching you Petey!"
That's right. Sickening, isn't it? After the show Mr. Randi went to the back of the studio to the alleyway and saw men throwing cases of money and checks into the back of a van...but he also noticed them throwing some of them in the trash. Upon searching the dumpster he realized that these bags contained checks worth less than 5 dollars each. It seems it would've been too hard for Mr. Popoff to have his accountants write down the information for all of these checks so they were just thrown away. The fucker was hit hard when the footage, including the transmissions of his wife, were aired on the Johnny Carson Show but people continued to follow him. Ofcourse alot stopped their donations, which caused him to go bankrupt, but he came back on the scene by healing people from wheel chairs. They later discovered that these people could always walk.
On to a lighter asshole, John Edwards. He claims to talk to the dead and have psychic abilities. The problem is that he actually believes this. See, anyone can be a psychic like Mr. Edwards. All they would have to do is master the art of cold reading (guessing and throwing out light information to receive bigger information from the audience...aka the Shotgun Effect) and hot reading (getting someone else to supply the information beforehand). I've done it on occasion as a cheap trick, but always admitted to its falsehood. The people who don't admit that it's a trick are doing serious damage by altering the memories the grieving have of the dead. This doesn't comfort the bereaved! It just provides false hope and depression when they later find out that it's all a lie. Back to televised psychics, one would wonder why they haven't been debunked by audiences yet. The fact of the matter is that any popular psychic requires his audience to sign a contract promising not to discuss any of the events taped to the media. Why? I think you know. Take Mr. Edwards for example. His live tapings last 2 or 3 hours each and the show on television is only 22 minutes long (excluding commercials from the 30 minute set-up). What does this allude to? I think you know already. The other reasonable questions are why such psychics can't just call out one name and point to one person. Are the dead busy doing something or having coughing fits that would cause the psychic to misunderstand them? No, it's all just a cheap marketing gimmick set to put asshole liars on television so they can go on to sell their asshole, full of shit books and bullshit videos or CDs. When Mr. Randi offered Mr. Edwards a chance to prove himself he responded with a letter that read 'I do not respond to criticism.' What do you have to hide, Mr. Edwards?
Remember that you can't blame the victim, though! They want to believe so badly that they will take great chances to hear some sort of news from their loved ones who have passed on. The problem is that these 'psychic' assholes know that and exploit it for their own self-interests.
Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoyed another installment of SYDN.
***For any psychic who disagrees with my assessment I offer you a chance to prove yourself to the world. Visit www.randi.org and take the challenge. No one will call you a liar and you'll walk away with a clean million dollars. If you don't need the money than you can donate it to charity. I will then offer a full apology and delete this blog, leaving only the official unchanged apology in its place
