Unmasking the Illusion: A Deep Dive on How Psychics Fool Us

Mediums. Psychic readings. Tarot cards. Astrology and horoscopes. Ouija boards. ‘Energy’ readings. Fortune telling. They’re all sub-branches of the same tree. The same tricks, with different props. It’s all good low-hanging fruit for teaching critical thinking and can offer many lessons.

However, it remains cemented in pop-culture and particularly New Age trends, and many just love to eat it up. For a pre-believer, a psychic doesn’t have their work cut out for them – they simply play into it and give the people what they want to hear. Perhaps they’ll lean into an obvious concern and give a ‘profound’ warning or prediction. It depends on what the sitter is after; who will give more away than they will ever remember doing.

All the amazement and wonder, colourful artistry and magic of it, is just smoke and mirrors though. A huge part of the act is the dressing up of it, the setup, and the willingness of the sitter to believe in the first place. The actual ‘reading’ turns out to be subtle tricks and psychology, whether the psychic believes they’re genuinely helping people, or actually have powers, or not. The other huge part of it is the sitters’ own biases and giveaways, which do a lot of the work for the psychic.

Successful psychics are personable (or just confident), have well-practiced routines, and are skilled at certain tricks whether they realise they’re doing it or not – perhaps this is why many convince themselves they are actually psychic. Some just have to maintain the lie, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do what they do. I will go into great detail now, using plenty of examples of the many ways people fool and can be fooled, as well as explaining how we could test for real powers, and how to go about ruling out trickery.

I’m also going to put myself out there with some of my own experiences. There are several good critical thinking lessons to be taken from this, so please try to give it some real thought.

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Cold, Hot, Warm Readings – an Overview

These three types of readings are real skills, ranging from less difficult to very difficult to learn. They are an essential part of any psychic, ‘energy’ or astrology reading. For a pretty good history and summary of these techniques, read this article – but I will now proceed to list the many techniques and skills involved in each.

Warm readings are a combination of both, and therefore won’t be covered specifically.

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Cold Readings

Cold readings are information the reader can ascertain or guess at based on no prior knowledge of the subject. A cold reader may believe they are actually psychic and think they are helping people, and not realise they are skilled at these things, as many of them are quite subtle, and we tend to do some of them subconsciously anyway.

A lot of these techniques cleverly prime the subject to feed the reader information they can use, by imposing conditions on them such as honesty (no idea why they wouldn’t be able to tell if you were being deceitful, if psychic ‘energy’ was real). They say being ‘open’ is necessary. I mean, how else would they coax information or hints out of you?

Barnum Effect

The Barnum Effect is a staple of a psychic reading, and a huge component of the overall act and its impact on the sitter. This is a well-documented and studied effect in human psychology which causes us to accept otherwise vague, widely applicable statements as accurate, or tailored to us as individuals.

It’s used in pretty much any and every psychic or mystical practice there is, by mediums, prophecy, astrology, predictions, etc. It’s well documented to show that people take them as feeling personal, even when the same statements are given to lots of people, and they all say that it was spot on for them.

Shotgunning

Used together with the Barnum Effect, ‘shotgunning’ is another use of probability to gain an advantage whereby a large number of vague/common guesses are cycled through, until something sticks or resonates with the subject. It’s a numbers game.

The cycling through of multiple statements often comes phrased as questions rather than solid guesses - so they play 20 questions essentially.

Probabilities

A little knowledge about common themes of life goes a long way in whittling down a name or event. For example, the most common names begin with J, or M – and this is further refined by specific names in specific regions, in specific decades. All of this information is available online.

Of course, cancer or heart disease are very personal and emotionally hard hitting – seemingly specific. But what if you start out knowing they are the most common causes of death? Now, how likely that at least one of your family or friends had one of those problems? Quite likely, as it turns out. If the reader comes somewhat close to these themes, the sitter will likely point them the rest of (or some of) the way.

Pauses 

Pauses encourage the sitter to fill the gaps, they may chime in with a small hint or piece of information simply to break the silence, or out of nervousness, awkwardness, or because they feel it’s expected of them to talk at that moment. Failing that, their facial expression may change, or they might betray some other tell. A common psychological trick.

Questions 

The sitter may be asked if they have questions, or how they feel. Both can betray clues about their personality or life in general – or what they want to hear in the sitting. Even the reader may ask questions – but in a subtle way which doesn’t seem like outright asking. They are reading you – but not in a psychic way, just simply reading your audible and visual feedback.

Set the scene

A good set up involves making the sitter more receptive using relaxing environments (their own home for example – where lots of clues lie about them) and having some kind of system or props for effect and misdirection (tarot cards, crystals, palm reading etc). Cold readings are more successful when the subject cooperates, and psychologically we’re more receptive and trusting when we are more relaxed and stimulated (or distracted). This could be visually (colours, candles, jewels, cards) or with scents, music, alcohol or tobacco, etc.

A different set of psychological tricks come into play if it's a group dynamic - rather than feeling comfortable in a one on one, many social pressures and 'bafflements' come into play in front of an audience. These are equally effective if the scene is set. For example, dark room with a spotlight on the reader, or on the subject being singled out. Drapery, smoke machines, stage props, etc.

Detail comes only after a hit

You’ll notice that it takes a few vague ‘feeler’ statements first, until there’s a hit no matter how unspecific. These feelers will often sound more definite though –

“I’m getting a strong (sounds - but isn’t - definite) feeling about a stern woman (extremely vague) coming through”.

After that, and once cooperating, it’s fairly easy to embellish on details. Some will be probabilistic, such as colours, names, brands, relation to the sitter, etc. The sitter will likely guide them towards who that ‘woman’ is or was in many ways.

Once a relation is established, it’s even easier – it will give probability related to that generation about names, jobs, common hobbies, likely diseases etc.

Ambiguity 

Some details will seem specific such as left or right side of the body, or of a house, but are ambiguous. That is, they can be flipped, and the meaning can still be correct, e.g. psychic says there’s a scar on your left knee. You say there’s a scar on my right knee. They can say they meant your left knee from their point of view. (Scarred knees are also very commonplace). In reality, having a scar is almost guaranteed. Its location will give a big clue as to how it got there. They can talk about ‘the accident’ without knowing anything about it prior to the sitter confirming it. If the sitter hasn’t had one, then it’s for someone else 'coming through'.

Make the sitter do the work

Looking that last point of the scar - they’ve also just got you to fill in extra detail for them – where you do have a scar. You could’ve said ‘I don’t have a scar on my left knee’ and they may have moved on counting the scar as a miss, rather than press on about the right knee.

They now know you do have a scarred knee. What’s the likely cause of that? –

“The spirits are telling me you were a really active child, always exploring, staying out for entire days – your mother hardly even saw you!”

Well what kid (of a certain generation) doesn’t this apply to? Not many, I’d guess. But the continued narrative, as you keep imagining your childhood, speaks personally to you – even though it’s extremely commonplace over the population.

Generally speaking, the reader will be looking sharply for facial expressions, reactions, slight head nods, smiles, etc. These will guide them in the right direction or tell them it’s time to move onto a new tactic.

Stereotypes

Making probabilistic judgements about a person can really pay off and is easier than you might think. Without asking, you can estimate someone’s age, gender, height, weight, dress style, race/ethnicity, accent, socio-economic background, and on and on.

This is a lot of information to be able to make informed guesses about vague statements and make likely inferences about that person. Most of us do this internally without even thinking about it. So, if you’re actively practicing it, you can get very good at it using probabilities.

Blaming the Audience

An easy exit route for a miss is to simply blame one of a few things including the ‘spirits’, the audience, or the private sitter for not remembering, or needing to find out themselves. This is switching the burden of proof/moving the goalposts/special pleading.

Emotional Manipulation

Some psychic mediums will really work the empath angle and appear incredibly accommodating and gentle, and kind; such that the sitter may feel obligated to show some reciprocation for their politeness, in the form of playing along more (subconsciously, of course).

This works wonders for their set up, building instant trust and making the sitter more open and receptive to giving away tells, or information. Additionally, it’s well-studied that emotionally positive interactions influence people to judge information associated with it as truer, regardless of whether it is or not.

Salespeople typically use a lot of the same emotional tactics to hook you into a deal. We’re not at fault for falling for these things – psychological manipulation has had centuries to figure out what works best. We’re only just beginning to crawl out of the dark ages, on the grand timeline of applied knowledge.

They might also give you the illusion that you’re the one in control, by saying things like you don’t have to do it, you can take it slowly, answer in your own time or words, etc. But none of these manipulative tools make what they are doing any more credible. Real techniques, yes, but no indication of paranormal powers.

Visual Clues

Simply going to the toilet or paying attention when entering the driveway/house of a private reading is one way of many ways to gain some insight into a sitter before cold reading them. Photographs on the walls, trinkets, memories, pet items, even décor, plants, etc. These all give ammo to start a reading with – a medium will sharply observe all of these clues and use them to begin their act, or gain insight into their character or family, or who they live(d) with.

Confidence

Skilled psychics and mediums are usually very charismatic and confident, which really plays into the reassurance of the sitter. Appearing very confident immediately makes a sitter more receptive to their guidance, and they try to quickly establish that during the interaction, the psychic is in the driving seat.

The sitter is quite disempowered if receptive to this dynamic – and given that there’s usually a hope for it to be true in the first place, they’re going to be compliant. Misdirection and other psychological exploits then amplify the hits and play down the misses.

Misses Don’t Matter

In all cases, when all of the above techniques fail, it’s not really much of a problem for a psychic. They can swiftly play it down or sidestep into a special pleading fallacy. They can simply ignore, misdirect and move on, guess again. The subject isn’t going to be analysing these misses in real time, and when they do score a hit, it’s going to feel much more personal, and they will likely forget the misses altogether – while misremembering the hits as something more profound or more accurate than they actually were. This is because the hits feel good. And things that feel good, feel true.

There's a recorded reading in the further resources at the end of this post (the embedded podcast Skeptics with a K) where the psychic medium has miss after miss after miss, but the people there are desperate to experience some real psychic power - so they ignore it and give her every pass. Nobody is going to be 'that' one person that heckles or seeks to question it. The ones who are true believers will go away impressed, and the ones who saw the misses and weren't impressed will just forget it.

Flattery

You may think you’re immune to cheap flattery, but when you’re not expecting it, flattery is a powerful social dynamic. It makes the sitter feel a bit more special, and that the reader is likeable and trustworthy. It’s an immediate relationship builder and a subtle social pressure to want to be nice back, and nod along, or try to make things they say fit better with your life, because you want to be kind back in a way.

It can also be used to make them feel more involved or 'in the know' with psychics, if they tell you you're a bit psychic too, for example. This makes the sitter drop their guard a little, and become more receptive to the psychological trickery.

My list above is detailed but still not exhaustive of the tricks of the trade. I strongly encourage you to watch the following videos and to optionally read this short article, which very eloquently explains not just the points I’ve covered above on cold reading but the way they’re often applied in practice.

Give this quick video a watch for some explanations of cold reading probabilities beside some clips of TV psychics and mediums. When you see the crossover of them using the same skills it becomes clearer that they are following probabilistic patterns and subtle social and psychological techniques.

Below is another fascinating video featuring Derren Brown investigating a successful psychic medium called Joe, who is based in Liverpool. Derren is a great asset to analyse these claims, as he himself is a very practiced mentalist, essentially an ‘honest psychic’. Or at least a knowledgeable one, to be fairer to those who are not intentionally deceptive. He is always clear to disclose that it is a trick. You could say he’s an ‘ethical psychic’, given his transparency about his methods.

(I'm going to highlight the Derren case in purple as we will return to it throughout the post.)

Derren analyses Joes techniques throughout several performances with input from psychologist Prof. Richard Wiseman. You will see as he identifies lots of the above mentioned techniques and catches some easy to miss tricks – despite Joe maintaining the deception throughout.

Furthermore, he demonstrates on the spot, with no prior plan, that he is just as capable as Joe of using his cold reading to perform a ‘psychic’ reading on one subject who is very impressed (starts at 11.44). He could have told her that he is psychic and framed it in a way that came from a dead relative – but he didn’t, as is his ethical stance. Joe, agitated, then tries to one-up him, claiming that he does ‘facts’ (I mean, that’s the point?), even though Derren quite clearly did the same with very accurate facts.

Analysis Points

Joes Techniques

To talk about Joes ‘facts’ a moment, he mentioned only 2. One that she drove a mini, (which is later revealed that he saw her driving into the studio in) [hot reading], and two that one of her cats had ‘a problem with its paw’ [probabilities, ambiguity]. He actually asked this as a question, so did not give a fact [questions, ambiguity].

She then said that her cat had a problem with its claw [sitter did the work, ambiguity, misses don’t matter]. Remember that he earlier heard her say she had 2 cats from Derren’s reading [hot reading, detail comes after a hit].

Playing the Odds

Joe played the odds, using information that she had 2 cats (again the sitter did that work). Given that he said ‘paw’ and not claw, I’d count that a miss personally, as it wasn’t very specific – and most cats have probably had a problem with a paw or claw at some point.

However, playing the odds paid off as the sitter made it work for him. All things considered, a safe bet knowing she had 2 cats, and 8 chances to hit (2 cats = 8 paws). It turns out that the odds were higher than 8 chances if we consider claws, because that equals 40 chances to hit, if he’d have said that! She then told him all the specific info. Actually, both his ‘facts’ were [questions], making neither of them definitive statements. This makes it easy to sidestep if they were misses [misses don’t matter].

Derrens Contribution and Set Up

Let’s not discount the work Derren put in before him (arguably more impressive). He complimented her to make her feel comfortable and more receptive [flattery, confidence], observed the way she dressed and her age [visual clues, stereotypes, probabilities], asked for feedback: “does that make sense?” [questions, pauses]. He also sets the scene when she comes in by pretending that he doesn’t usually admit to himself as being psychic – this primes her to believe that he is really psychic, in case she knows he is a magician already [set the scene].

Derren managed to get 3 or 4 hits based on knowing nothing about her – and she didn’t have to say anything to him until after, although he probably read her facial clues and other tells (nods, smiles, etc).

Detail After a Hit, Sitter Does the Work

One other thing that struck me is that when she responded that one of her cats, Mishka, had a problem with her claw [sitter does the work], she also told him the cats name without him asking [sitter does the work]. She also is the one who tells them both she has specifically 2 cats - more information given away. It's really easy to let these kind of things slip during a reading of any kind, for anyone.

I’d be curious to see months down the line, when she recalls this story, whether she misremembers that the psychic medium ‘told her she had a cat called Mishka, who had a problem with her claw’? Rather than what really happened: 'knew already that she had cats because Derren cold read that first, then asked her did one have a problem with its paw (didn't use its name). After all, it was an impressive experience for her.

This, covered in the next section, would be [Misremembering], [motivated memory], [confirmation bias], [survivor bias].

Confirmation Bias, Self Deception

Pay attention to how impressed she was, how much a positive outcome this was for her. She overlooked Joe and Derren arguing as nothing. She thought Derren was a psychic after he told her he wasn’t. She happily gave more info in her appearance, expressions, and verbally than they both extracted themselves. Joe Power, from our knowing perspective might seem a bit of an arrogant and poor medium, but to her, and to many, many other people, he is as real as anyone else’s experience. As the sitter, she was disempowered, and in a very different state of mind. Think on that.

The most frustrating take-away from this particular 3-way interaction, was that even after Derren fessed up to her about using tricks, the girl still came out after and said it just shows you "all psychics work differently". Which is exactly the opposite conclusion to infer logically!

She still talks about Derren as a ‘psychic’, even though he stressed afterwards that he wasn’t. She still favours the emotional result over the low-key exposure of Joe. Which quite strongly leads us into the other huge component of how psychic mediums work – our own biases...

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We Readily Fool Ourselves

Ask yourself: do you like psychic/paranormal stuff? Do you want to believe it’s true? If even remotely yes, then you are already a highly susceptible target to your own biases. Really though, who wouldn’t want this to be true?

Remember, the easiest person to fool is yourself. There are numerous proven ways self-proclaimed psychics can exploit our trust, biases, our psychology, or our unconscious tells. But how about you? That’s another vast world of self-exploitation – and it’s happening right inside your own head.

Before I list some ways we fool ourselves, I highly recommend giving this article a read from Psychology Today, by Laith Al-Shawaf, Ph.D. associate professor of psychology. It is a fantastic manifesto of human psychology when it comes to mystic beliefs, and as he eloquently puts it, the:

“mistakes we make when we try to comprehend the world with our fallible, meaning-hungry minds.”

If you watched the Derren Brown video, you’ll see people will readily and openly admit that when they heard the ‘hit’ they wanted to hear, it didn’t even matter about the several misses it took to get there – a numbers game. This highlights the fact that most times, people don’t care if it’s true. They just desire to hear something comforting.

But would they care if they knew it was untrue? Because presumably no-one likes being deceived either - and being deceived necessarily follows the fact that psychic powers have thus far only been shown to be trickery.

Probabilities, statistics, and misdirection are not intuitive to most of us. But emotions are visceral. They feel intuitive, simply because they feel. It is no wonder that so many play down the probability aspect of psychic readings, while elevating the perceived validity of emotional thinking.

What's more, as also pointed out in the above article:

"Woo, however, is not harmless; it literally kills people...The woo industrial complex is harmful to our health."

Misremembering after the fact 

Retelling the story – this is a common way in which people who had personal readings are prone to fooling themselves and others around them. It’s actually one of the biggest and most impactful biases that we don’t realise is there and applies to countless other topics – UFO sightings, ghostly experiences, even plain old tit for tat arguments with siblings.

We like to think that we ‘replay’ a memory when recalling one, like an unchanged recording. But that isn’t how memories work – they are in fact ‘reconstructed’ every time we recall them, and therefore heavily subject to the way we feel at the time of recalling. Let’s say you’re recounting your UFO story to friends, excitedly becoming a part of the conversation. You’re likely embellishing some details uncritically and without realising, for effect, for a good story. The same is true for stories about psychics and mediums.

This article is a great in depth explanation for the ways we tend to morph and embellish on the positive results when retold from how it actually happened. Really good read for grasping how it can and does happen when people say:

“But how can they have known something so specific?”

Or:

“There’s no way they could have known that!”

Well, sorry to disappoint, but there absolutely are many ways in which they appear to have known or can at least find out, and then there are even more ways we can misremember what they ‘knew’.

Like a magician, the fact they are practiced in subtle skills is exactly what makes them so convincing – and of course if you already want to believe, half their work is done and amplified by your own biases. If you could figure out how they do it, it wouldn’t be a very good skillset!

Motivated Memory

This is directly linked to the above point, but more generally speaking. This article has links to research on the topic and summarises the various ways we are selective about the way we remember events.

Our brains not only forget or misremember details, but if you were fooled or had a positive feeling at the time of a psychic reading, the brain is already motivated to be selective about what is remembered, and unfair about what actually happened, and how it went down. You might not recall saying something which was a big clue for the reader, we forget those kind of details easily.

Confirmation Bias

A magician isn’t as convincing as a psychic medium to some, likely because they tell you it’s trickery – or you attend knowing or expecting that in the premise. However, if you attend a psychic reading with the desire for it to be true or on the premise that it is, hits via their trickery confirm your desire to believe (not confirm the truth).

The experience is sold to you and reinforced to you in a narrative that it’s psychic powers, rather than a trick. In a nutshell, you want it to be true, so you believe whichever bits sound like your life as true and inflate the significance of them.

Survivor Bias

Survivor Bias simplified is that we are prone to remembering the 1 in 10 hits and forgetting the 9 misses. This means even terrible mediums that do worse than pure chance alone can make that one good hit feel profound, and trigger an emotional reaction in the sitters brain. This is enough for the sitter to excuse the poor statistical reality of the fact that they are usually as accurate as chance (unless, of course, they use hot reading techniques too).

This is a result of simple psychology and probabilities which all psychics tend to exploit. It’s why they won’t start with a very specific guess (unless hot reading). They first whittle down a 1 in 10 guess to a 1 in 3 guess by ‘shot gunning’ some vague statements, at least one is bound to land in the ball park - if not on the money. That’s enough to build the illusion off, and from there they will build on their readings using more cold reading skills: e.g. subconscious help from the client.

Appeal to emotion

People report feeling moved or shaken by the profundity of their sitting with psychic mediums. This is a clear way we often cloud our judgement though. Remember, it doesn’t matter how real or emotional it felt. If you’re in a heightened emotional state, you have nerves, anticipation, confusion, excitement, floods of feelings, then your brain is not recording the situation accurately.

Afterwards, you will associate the way you felt with truth, but this is wrong. More often, recalling emotional events will have far more inaccuracies about what happened, and particularly how it happened. Emotions and feelings don’t indicate truth – but they often colour it.

Successful psychic mediums are often masters of emotional manipulation. They constantly exploit the easy targets of our biases that are not just our emotional needs, but our emotional pitfalls and blind spots.

Emotional Manipulation 2

For many people, seeking out a psychic or medium is about their desperate need to feel connected to their lost loved ones again because they still harbour grief, and a person in this heightened state of emotions is especially prone to fooling themselves into believing it (of course, this doesn’t help to process the grief healthily in the long run).

For others, predictions of the future hold emotional comfort in needing a ‘certainty’ about what is to come, feeling in control to a degree, or having a set path. A middle aged single woman, for example, might typically be anxious about their love life. They might want reassurance that they will get married or have children before it’s too late – and a psychic will pick up on that.

For others, it could simply be a desire to experience something which fulfils a sense of wonder and depth to their life, which they haven’t yet discovered in the real world, or to fill a gap in previous beliefs which they are not yet ready to let go of.

All of the above, importantly, are ways the individuals’ biases and needs are used to fool (and often disempower) themselves. We want our desires affirmed, our emotional needs met and a way to put off and avoid turmoil, rather than to value the truth, or face life sensibly but accept that uncertainty is a part of life. This, plus our brains ravenous appetite for satisfying patterns, can put us at the mercy of our own gullibility.

Misperceiving Personal Experiences

As explained incredibly here, our perceptions are influenced by things like expectations, culture, family and friends, past experiences, the list goes on. This doesn’t mean that your personal experience is never true. But it does mean that when exciting or emotional claims of unproven, extraordinary levels are made, you’re most vulnerable to making the mistakes of motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and rationalising.

Our brains are bad at perceiving things they don’t understand. So, if you don’t understand how a psychic could know something about you, then your brain looks for a shortcut to try to explain it. This results in things like belief in psychic powers or speaking to the dead, for lack of a better understanding (just look back historically at people burning ‘witches’ for knowing more than certain stupid men of their time – a perfect example of filling gaps in knowledge with an irrational paranormal belief, to protect their current biases).

Our brains are uncomfortable with uncertainty, and so they work hard to fill those gaps with at least something, even if that thing is completely unproven or untestable – rather than wait and try to figure it out.

This is a fantastic article which shows the research into the brain using a perhaps easier to understand illusion: optical illusions (includes actual illusion!). This fascinating research shows that importantly, the same mechanisms and shortcuts in our brains influence and create social illusions and bend our perceptions to conform with emotions and prior expectations.

Furthermore, our brains do this with all kinds of sensory input. Try this audible illusion out below, which works every single time – even when you know what you’re hearing is an illusion!

In short: our brains are gullible and very unreliable when faced with illusions – be they optical, social, mental, emotional, or mutually honest mistakes (e.g. sitter who believes in psychic powers and psychic who actually believes they have powers). This is exactly why it’s necessary to test reality and make inferences based in evidence. If something is truly untestable in reality, then what is the difference between that and it not existing?

Speaking to why it's so important to recognise the dangers of our irrational minds, and holding paranormal beliefs such as witches:

"As long as people continue to believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities." - Voltaire

Yes, this does have relevance to psychics and mediums too. Because it is the same set of mental mechanisms that permit both, and that we must watch out for generally speaking. To say it is ok for one topic, legitimises that way of thinking in more dangerous ones - think about blood rituals in the modern world, in certain tribes - even still today.

Expectancy Bias

If you’ve read anything by me then you know how unreliable anecdotes are. However, you also know how powerful and influential they can be. Supposing your friends or family have given their anecdotes on experiences with a medium, or with how tarot cards or astrology guides them.

That’s a powerful set of physical props and stories, and that’s already priming your brain to expect a positive outcome (even if untrue, still positive) from a psychic medium. Friends and family validation instils a level of trust in you which relies entirely on their word – not on truth. If it ‘worked’ for them, why not for you?

Self-attached Meaning

If you want to believe a thing is true, then your brain will help you to do that in many ways. For example, if you are presented with a beautifully designed deck of tarot cards as a believer, you may look at them and feel that there’s something compelling about them, unlike a normal deck of playing cards. This is your mind imparting your own biases and meaning onto them. After all, they are likely just another bunch of mass manufactured products from a factory in the far east.

Avoiding Responsibility

Another common way our psychology works is to search for a way to avoid responsibility, or shift blame from ourselves for our life situations or choices. Not that things are always our fault, but wouldn’t it be nice to simply be able to look at an Astrology chart and blame Mercury for our relationship or communication issues, simply because someone was born at a different time? Much easier than owning our life choices and addressing the problems proactively, and critically – but meaningless, unfortunately.

It feels better to have an external reason and the illusion of some sort of explanation, than to accept that chance and uncertainty play a massive role in our lives.

Ideo-motor Effect

Another very convincing trick for which the real explanation is much cooler. Crystal ‘dowsing’ or Ouija boards work via this effect. The body, especially when some muscles are tensed, produces tiny involuntary movements. Certain props for mediums such as above, exploit this by using simple physics. One tiny, undetectable force on your part can be amplified at the other end of a weighted chain, or smooth surface for a glass.

This is why levers and pulleys work – the manipulation of physics. It is an unseen force, but a very real and calculable one. Of course, people are not thinking about this as they focus their attention on contacting the dead.

Bafflement and Resolution

We’re prone to many levels of subconscious misdirection and confusion. This short video offers an illusionists insight into how false memories are cultivated and ‘bafflement’, or using techniques of confusion, can make the sitter hyper-suggestible as their brain seeks a way back to understanding, making mistakes and missing tricks along the way.

If you watched the Derren Brown video with Joe Power, you’ll see how easily people tend to misremember details, or go along with wrong information when they feel pressured - like to simply count up family members, for example. That’s during the reading. Down the line, weeks or months later, even more details will be misremembered and it will seem much more accurate or profound than it actually was. Our brains fill gaps of information in for us as we reconstruct the memory and omit details that weren’t a hit and don’t fit our beliefs, or that were unimportant to what we wanted to be true.

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Hot Readings

Hot readings are knowing information about someone before you give the reading. This is the intentionally deceptive route. More indicative of a fraud that knows they are defrauding people, even if they still believe in powers.

One of the most famous and biggest cases of this kind of fraud is the exposure of ‘faith healer’ Peter Popoff, who exploited all manner of vulnerable and over-trusting people.

In the Derren Brown investigation, after Joe refuses to cooperate on a fair test, Derren sets up a sting in which the test is blinded (Joe is unaware and therefore unable to hot read). This is how you would have to test a psychic reading, to be sure they weren’t hot reading, so they can’t lie to you about it. What happened? Abject failure and a clearly infuriated Joe.

At the start of the video, Joe performed a really accurate reading for a lady named Vonda who was obviously blown away by him. She got what she wanted out of the interaction and she was clearly emotionally triggered. However, at the end of the video, it became quite apparent that he was likely using a hot reading on her.

It’s probably no coincidence that Joes sister lived next door to this lady. So, Joe already had very specific information on tap about her, and he’d also performed readings for many of her neighbours previously! Furthermore, it wasn't left to chance for her to be selected as the client - Joe's manager put forward several clients (presumably pre-hot read) to select from.

Hot reading by definition, is lying. If a psychic medium tells you they have never met you or a person associated with you, you might say how could they have possibly known? Well, I’m sorry to say that if they are hot reading, of course they would lie about that too.

Supposing you now want to say:

“You can’t prove that they’re not genuine!”

Well, no, but isn’t that the point? Shouldn’t the burden of proof lie with the one making claims? The answer to that is yes – and the default position shouldn’t merely be to believe the extraordinary claim without equally compelling evidence. To do so would not be open minded, but gullible.

Also, by the same logic, I would say:

“But you also can’t prove that they aren’t lying.”

The difference is that lying, illusions, and trickery are proven to be not just possible, but prevalent in the real world. Psychic powers? Zero proof in the real world.

Weigh these statements together and they are logically fair. So, if the implication of the fact that I can’t prove they’re not genuine is that I should give them the benefit of the doubt, then at the very least, the same amount of weight should be given to the second statement that you can’t prove they’re not lying in some way. Given that this is the vastly more likely outcome based on the evidence, the second statement in fact has more merit.

The first statements’ purpose is to add credibility to psychic claims. This makes it an appeal to ignorance, as the fact we can’t prove they’re not genuine doesn’t add any credibility to the claim of psychic powers. What we can do though, is ask for evidence of the claim - or dismiss it without evidence.

So, if someone says I should give the extraordinary claim of paranormal abilities merit just because I can’t prove they aren’t genuine, this is an appeal to ignorance fallacy. It is logically wrong.

Statements along the lines of “You don’t know that they’re not genuine” or “We can’t know what they actually see, so maybe it’s true” are all Appeals to Ignorance:

Online Research

Almost everyone has an online profile to lesser or more degrees. Even if you delete social media, you still exist residually, through your friends, family, and work networks. Over several social platforms, spanning hundreds of posts and mutuals, we’re all more than likely an easy target for a hot reading.

Your Local Area

Even if you somehow don’t exist in any trace online, you may have a psychic who knows the area, which is probable given that they will be in travelling distance at least. This might give away mutual friends or associates, and they've likely done a lot of readings in their commutable area, so they likely know of possible connections to you.

Social Circles

If you knew to contact the psychic, how did you find them? Through a relative, friends, friends of friends, neighbours? It all leads back to you in some way. A casual conversation with any of them might give them something on you.

More distant or less frequented social connections may be used, who may not necessarily be in regular contact with you – but an old acquaintance could reveal family history to a degree or share a heartwarming story about you from being children.

Take my Gran for example, you wouldn’t believe how many people I’d never seen in my life knew about me and my brother. She worked in a busy local Martins bakery and chatted to everybody. She was much loved and respected in the area, and she loved to talk about us. If you were a hot reading psychic, it may do you well to listen and talk to these kinds of people in your area.

Prayer Cards, Forms, Census

An obvious way to get some information is in the set up. Prayer cards worked for Peter Popoff. The cards, or ‘applications’, often require filling out something they want to hear, who they want to contact, or why they want to have a reading, and what may have happened in their life recently. Seems obvious, but this works on people.

More contemporarily, all kinds of business forms or even the local birth census may be found publicly. This would give quite accurate results of family relations, and deceased relatives. They only need your full name to go digging for that.

Undercover Help

A lot of psychics will use helpers to go and pose as other sitters, and bystanders, to mingle and listen to conversations around the place of the readings. Managers, promoters, and venue staff are used too. This works even better in a show where a lot of people will be.

But it also works on individuals, if they hang around near that persons work or cafes, etc. A short conversation with a customer facing job role – they could pose as a customer, for example. Very forgettable. They need only be selective about who to read, based on access they can gain to information about that person.

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My Personal Experiences

I’ll offer two of my very personal, vivid anecdotes. Not to convince you of any truth, but to illustrate a point.

Experience 1

When I was around 9 or 10 years old, it was a Thursday (because my Gran was at our house every Thursday), and me, my gran and brother were talking about how old the family dog, Sam (short for Samantha) was. She’d been with us all my life, since before I could remember. My brother off-handedly said ‘I bet she dies tomorrow’. It was just daft talk, of course (he is 3 years younger than me).

The next day, the Friday after school and when I arrived home to my mum in tears, she tentatively explained it was Sam, she had yelped, tried to get up, and died that afternoon. I was shell shocked, truly heartbroken, and through tears I remember spluttering how Nathan had said only yesterday that he bet she would die tomorrow (today).

Now, this was my first experience of a family death. Death as a real concept even. In my heightened grief, I said what I said in a moment of no control over my emotions or indeed my thoughts. I didn’t truly believe that he had caused it by any stretch, but it still felt like too much of a coincidence, despite my understanding that it was just chance. She was a very old dog at this point. Probably a ticking time bomb. Nevertheless, the experience combined with that coincidence rocked me for a while. How though? Why though? I couldn’t explain it. Of course, there was nothing to explain beyond coincidence – but my mind craved some control over this chaotic existence, in a time of grief and uncomfortable uncertainty.

This was a powerful emotional experience and had someone tried to convince me in that moment that psychic predictions were real, or that you could speak things into happening, I’m not sure my young brain could’ve seen through it. Looking back, it is clear to me just how mentally vulnerable I was in that state, and at that time of my life, to deception. Scarily enough, to my own deception. My own emotions, and the ways I could’ve misled myself, searching down dark paths for ways to understand my grief. Open to those who might have offered to prey upon my searching.

Thankfully, I was not exposed to such ideas in my family, or my friends at that time. I was also built with a good natural set of thinking skills – but not invulnerable to pitfalls.

Experience 2

Another, much more recent experience I had, came some weeks after my cat died. We’d also had her for 12 or so years and it was heartbreaking to have to put her down. Near the end of that grieving period, I dreamt that she appeared to me and just sat and happily gave one final meow. She seemed happy, healthy and painless (she'd spent her last few months in constant pain from her teeth, and had become extremely thin). Smiling almost. I felt a profound comfort.

To someone easier to fool and vulnerable, or a pre-believer, this surely would be interpreted as a visit from the spirit world – perhaps an interaction that would say ‘it wasn’t your fault’ that you had to put her down. I understood it to be a final piece of the grieving process, reconciling my acceptance of it in my sleep – which is consistent with our best understanding of sleep scientifically, and makes sense emotionally. But the intense comfort of the experience was not lost on me, despite my understanding.*[Side point]* I still felt a huge weight lifted that night, and a deep thankfulness replaced my grief. The experience was so powerful, I still smile at it and feel comforted by it today.

*[Side point]*

This is analogous to a magician act. No matter how many times you see them, they can amaze you, fill you with wonder, make the experience seem magical. Yet you know they are only tricks permitted by the real world. They can tell you that they are not really magic. But we pay money to be amazed at something our brains (as spectators, or sitters) don’t fully understand. A world without spurious, deceptive claims of the paranormal is not a world without magic and wonderment.

These powerful experiences manifest in our memories over time and are normal functions of our brains and lives. As we reconstruct those powerfully emotional memories years down the line, they begin to feel and sound legendary almost, detached from reality. Does the coincidence about Sam make my brother an unknowing psychic, able to channel predictions or prophecies? After all, a prediction really amounts to a ‘bet’ or ‘informed guess’. Does my dream make me a potential medium, or channeler of animal spirits? No, of course not.

Furthermore, those ideas are unhealthy, they can possibly serve to put blame (resolve uncertainty, gain some meaning) on someone innocent, like my brother. To think of my dream as anything more than the effect of an emotional challenge, would be a narcissistic self-delusion that I had powers (confirmation bias, emotional appeal). To act upon these anecdotes as convincing others of the paranormal would be deceptive and predatory of those who may be as or more vulnerable than I was all those years ago. People deserve their needs met in reality, truthfully.

These same experiences extend to people – and are probably more intense too, making those beliefs even easier to fall victim to.

Am I Misremembering?

I just want to point out, that as powerful and precise my recollection of my dog dying was, I wonder if you questioned it? Were you on your critical thinking game, or more emotionally stirred by the story? I predict the latter.

The fact is that although I still feel confident that’s how it happened, I can honestly speculate I may be wrong about the timing – maybe it wasn’t the next day. Maybe it was a week? Did my brother specifically word his ‘prediction’ that way?

There’s no way to tell this now unless I recorded it, but I could be embellishing based on the intensity of the emotional experience, and misremembering details which might make it much less a coincidence than it sounded, although it feels that way to remember it.

Crucially, when I’ve told anyone this story, I left out those caveats at first, and I tell it the uncritical way anyway, because it feels like a more powerful story. We're storytellers, and we love hearing them too.

I'm nowadays careful to add those caveats later, of course.

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How Could We Test?

Let’s snap back to the present. If psychic powers are as real as they claim, then there must be a way to demonstrate it.

What is real? It must be a part of our shared objective reality; therefore testable within reality, and interact with reality, independently of established non-psychic methods.

Assuming psychic abilities exist, or are real, there should be a way to tell that apart from other means of achieving that effect. Otherwise, what’s the difference between a convincing lie and real powers? By extent, what’s the difference between something which cannot be detected or tested within reality, and it not existing?

After my post so far, we now already know the numerous ways that magicians, conjurers, mentalists, frauds, and especially ourselves can achieve the illusion of psychic powers. So, by knowing, now we can control for those things in a test, to make sure that if psychic or ‘energy’ based abilities are real, it isn’t just those other things that are responsible.

James Randi, a brilliant and much loved and respected magician and Skeptic, devoted his career to fairly testing this – in accordance and cooperation with many psychics and mediums. He offered an incentive of 1 million dollars to anyone who could successfully demonstrate paranormal abilities, under mutually agreed test conditions. Despite over 1000 applicants ranging from 1964 - 2015, no one ever succeeded – as every time, whether they truly believed they had abilities or not, their methods were exposed, demonstrated not to work, or the applicant backed out last minute.

This below video is a brilliant summary of his life, after he died in 2020.

If you ever wanted to personally test a psychic or medium, the test would depend on the claims being made - but one of the best things to do is to record the session. Video is best but audio will do. Most importantly, this will keep your own false memories from being amplified into something more amazing than what actually happened or what was actually said, and how it was said.

Other possible things to check and be ready for in advance of meeting the test psychic would be:

• Background checks on the reader. It's not unethical to be prepared.

• Ask your mutuals. People nearby had readings from them? Who else in your circle might they have met?

• Location – ideally away from your personal space, you want to try and prevent hot reading.

• Use a fake alias on social media to contact them so as to minimise hot readings.

• Document every step/action you take on the run up before the reading too, and any interactions with the reader.

• Memorise a few red herrings to work out if they are cold reading you – invent a family member, maybe use someone who is still alive, maybe wear a meaningful looking set of jewellery, etc. If you can lead them into specific misses (or hits), they are probably trying to cold read you.

• Consciously make the effort to give nothing away with nods, smiles, or talking. Let them do the work as much as you can manage - it's what they claim they do. Only begin to evaluate after the reading, and don’t give away true information during any interaction. They should tell YOU.

• Afterwards, compare the results to the truth and see if you can work out the structure of the reading. Total the misses against the hits to see how accurate they were and identify where you might have given something away. Fairly evaluate what was a ‘hit’, and whether it was merely a vague guess.

• Identify their special pleading excuses from the performance if you were careful enough to give them a difficult time. Whose fault was it this time? The spirits? Was it a ‘weak’ day? Were you not ‘open’ enough to energy?

Below - the reason why it's important to record a reading. This below video discussion between Susan Gerbic and Melanie Trececk-King covers a great many of the social dynamics of personal readings, including an experience Susan had when analysing a recording of an old reading, the sitter completely misremembered what things were said and how inaccurate it was looking back (43.50 – 46.26 the video will start at this point for convenience but it’s a video full of insights). This is why it’s essential to record such a test.

Finally, as quickly as any one medium is debunked, special pleading arises such as:

“These bad psychics give ‘real’ psychics a bad name and make it harder for them to do what they do.”

Again, what is meant by ‘real’ psychic then? Because it’s this same excuse almost every time.

What you should take away from this so far is that the results of psychic readings shown in this post were indistinguishable from any others. If these people were using tricks, yet some people are ‘genuine’, then how are we to tell the difference? With no distinguishing factor, they both amount to the same thing, which is not evidence of real psychics, but in fact evidence against them.

Emily Rosa

Psychic and spiritual claims take several forms. Studies and tests have to be designed based on the claims specifically being made, such as ‘energy fields’ for example.

One inspirational case of simple testing elegance was performed by 9 year old Emily Rosa, who became the youngest person to have a published research paper. She wanted to test the truth of claims made by Therapeutic Touch (similar claims to Reiki, Qi, and Chakras) practitioners, that they could detect human ‘energy fields’, and conducted a brilliantly controlled and fairly agreed upon scientific study.

The post text is:

"At age 9, Emily Rosa scientifically tested therapeutic touch (TT) as a science fair project, and her project was actually got published (link below). The design was elegantly simple. 21 practitioners were blindfolded and repeatedly asked to state if the investigator was closer to the practitioner's left or right hand. If the TT practitioners were correct, they could be able to sense the aura of the investigator about 100% of the time. However, they correctly stated the position only 44% of the time---results that are unsurprisingly no better than chance."

As one commenter pointed out, the range of inventive excuses once the test had been shown to debunk the practitioners’ claims was perhaps the most interesting part. Click the study link to have a read. These excuses weren’t an issue for the practitioners, until after they failed.

Now I know that if you still want to believe, you say well we need to look at a real psychic medium, not another fake. But at what point do we stop looking for the next, and the next, and the next? People who say this need to start providing information on how to distinguish ‘real’ before the test, if that is the usual answer.

At what point do we stop and consider that this whole body of disconfirming evidence may be the correct standpoint, in the absence of no confirming evidence at all? There’s a point where you have to really examine your own motives for carrying on the search for that one elusive, ‘real’ psychic.

To close out the ‘how to test section’, here’s another short summary from James Randi about how he went about testing paranormal claims and describes his experiences over the years.

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Failure Becomes ‘Persecution’

We talked about the burden of proof earlier, and how claims should be proven by the person making them. Well, this is not a new thing. Open minded skeptics have always offered fair, agreeable tests to actually separate these powers from the possibility of lying – under no prior assumption that they don’t exist, but that if they do exist, they should be testable. They would love it if it was proven real, and testing wouldn’t change the psychics abilities to do so, if they indeed possess these abilities.

Through the years though, any who agreed on a test has either failed to demonstrate abilities (after the fact they said it will work) or changed their mind before the test and cut off ties. The ones that fail are rarely willing to admit to themselves that they don’t have powers, if they actually believe. They almost always explain it away, inventing a range of excuses afterwards for why it didn’t work. This is a logical fallacy known as special pleading, or moving the goalposts. Carl Sagan beautifully illustrates these fallacies below.

The Dragon In My Garage – Excerpt from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick." And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

Sagan expands on the point

What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind.

But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold.

Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative — merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons — to say nothing about invisible ones — you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages — but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" — no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it — is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Joe, our medium from the Derren Brown video, also changed his mind before a fair test - becoming the 'persecuted victim' of truth. Once he realises that he wouldn’t be able to take the test which would fairly determine whether he was relying on spirits or on cold and hot reading, which by the way – he agreed to first – he flips it around and declares:

“A dog wouldn’t take that test, it was designed for failure.”

Which is a funny way of saying - “it was designed to test the truth, or to control for lies, or would actually disprove his claims”. He’s on the cusp of admitting it. The test wasn’t designed for failure: his claims were designed for failure, because they are not true. He is clearly being difficult and hostile by this stage.

He says he needs to have voice reaction, communication, in order for ‘the spirit people’ to come through. Is it just coincidence that those things also happen to be vital for cold reading? What about people who claim to read ‘energy’ from objects, possessions? They don't appear to need face to face contact with the owner? This is an even easier test to conduct, given that an object should remain consistent, but has the same rate of failure when properly tested.

You see, the thing about 'belief' is that you can just invent whatever reasons are needed to justify your failures or make it untestable. Again, special pleading, moving the goalposts.

When asked what he would consider a good test to distinguish cold reading from psychic powers, he then explains away all fair possibilities of testing in favour of ‘I just know, so you have to trust me’. Again, switching the burden of proof and shunning his personal responsibility to ethically prove his claims. Sighhhh.

Another example of the victim card is from the Susan Gerbic article I linked earlier, which sees a psychic become defensive and dismissive the minute she faced a real challenge to her beliefs. She said typical things such as:

“…you do not know the difference between truth and untruth” - Ad Hominem fallacy.

“… Therefore, since you truly are not interested in truth, this is where I will disengage.” - Strawman fallacy.

This is an escape technique. When faced with genuine, honest inquiry, and well-reasoned arguments are put to them, they often start with the personal attacks. They inevitably don’t make sense – wild statements such as the above couldn’t be further from the actual truth, ironically.

Making sense is not the purpose though, as they are merely lashing out in frustration – their brain leaping to defend their dearly held beliefs and shield them from scrutiny and truthful discussion. Becoming the victim again:

“To contaminate my thoughts and mindfulness with the negativity of public society and its destructive socialization habits would be a travesty…”

This above comment is a rationalisation for something more like:

“To consider well-reasoned points that may make me question my personal beliefs which I desire to be true with all my heart, and not have a good answer to them, would hurt me very much.”

Because that is what she is talking about. Not the actual societal trolls we all know exist, but this is how psychics often react to unbiased, well-meaning constructive criticism. They turn it into fake persecution. It is a defence mechanism. Giving up with reasoning because they’d rather not question their self, and where truthful reasoning might lead them, is what they fear.

Healthy and well-warranted skepticism towards extraordinary claims becomes “Negativity”.

Collaborative, open, careful and honest pursuit of truth becomes “destructive socialization habits”.

Being humble and brave enough to question one’s own beliefs and grow as a person, and open minded enough to change one’s views to fit the evidence, wherever truth leads, becomes “a travesty”.

A few genuinely thoughtful and engaging people becomes “public society”. *

*Apart from the fact that society is public, the contrary is usually true; society at large is often woefully unequipped to scrutinise claims of truth adequately - hence why so many fall for such claims. That said, it’s through independent replication of results and collaborative knowledge that we are able to find weaknesses in poor arguments, and truth emerges.

Willard van Orman Quine’s ‘Web of Beliefs’ helps explain why it’s challenging to dislodge a belief, even if it’s incorrect:

Again, it should not be missed that the earlier quote is also an example of crying persecution upon failure:

“Fake psychics give ‘real’ ones a bad name and make it harder for them to do what they do.”

Persecution via the actions of other unrelated con artists? Well then, all the ‘real’ ones have to do is demonstrate it! Skeptics are still patiently waiting, because all the other ‘real’ ones to come and go still have failed to do so. Or does “to do what they do” really mean to maintain the illusion, since the more that fail fair tests, the less likely, statistically speaking, that these powers exist? Perhaps the quote should read:

“Psychics and mediums being continually disproven makes it harder for them to do what they do.”

Psychics and mediums will passionately defend their beliefs with utter confidence and proclaim great feats of ‘truth’. Strange, then, that any time a fair test of the truth is derived, the powers disappear. Funny, how that as soon as their beliefs are met with contradictory evidence, they often become the very people they accuse skeptics and scientists of being; unreasonable, defensive, closed minded, dogmatic, lashing out, and running away from scrutiny.

When truth gets anywhere near their core identity, it’s suddenly ‘untestable’. They’re suddenly being persecuted, attacked personally. The ones trying to establish a fair path to the truth suddenly become the villains. 

So for the good of us all, let me conclude this section with this quote:

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Conclusions: Zero Proof, Plenty of Doubt

The most important thing to note alongside the staggering number of confirmed possibilities for why people believe in psychic powers, is that whenever mediums have actually been investigated, they’ve been found to be (often unknowingly) frauds, sometimes after having fleeced a lot of money from people. A lot of the time they have just convinced themselves they have powers.

Meanwhile, no psychic or medium has been able to demonstrate that they have powers under fair, controlled experiments which they themselves agree to the conditions of – and there have been numerous attempts.

Non-psychic Evidence

In my post, 15 cold reading methods, 5 hot reading methods, and 12 personal unconscious biases, and several logical fallacies. Including honest to dishonest methods, psychological methods, slight of hand, and probabilistic methods.

This is not all of them, but the more typical ones. They are used in conjunction, overlap to various degrees, and produce powerful combined effects which are well-studied. They work much better on particular individuals and when in certain mind states - even shown to work on skeptics to a degree (see the first large experiment in the further resources at the end, very compelling).

Additionally, many, many well-controlled tests, mutually agreed on by psychics, and high standards of methodology - designed to isolate a psychic effect or rule out non-psychic effects.

Actual psychic Evidence

In the most sincere terms, zero documented evidence where we can be sure there aren't a whole host of the above things going on, or aren't serious flaws in the study.

What’s the harm?

Psychics and mediums are, as far as anybody can tell, dishonest magic shows. At best, they tell people what they want to hear, and the subjects just trust it, maybe feeling a bit better for a while. At worst, it’s predatory, collecting cash for lying to vulnerable people and encouraging other woo-beliefs, possibly stopping a person making life decisions that matter with a clear outlook of mind. It can prevent people from grieving their loss in a healthy way and prolong that experience of not letting go or moving on.

Furthermore, it can interfere with serious police work in some examples, where psychics or dowsers try to get involved with murder or missing persons cases – hindering the case with nonsense ‘insights’ and preventing families from getting closure as a result. Possibly even hindering a search for someone who may still be alive. There are well-documented cases of this.

EXPAND

I just want to caveat that even though the above article is by and large reasonable, the following line taken from it is not:

“Equally, it is understandable that the police, faced with a blank wall in their investigation, may be open to an intervention from outside their normal lines of inquiry.”

It is not understandable. Yes, desperate individuals, it’s understandable given our human psychology. But the institutions which should operate ethically in the best interest of the public, should absolutely not be wasting this kind of time. It’s like with alternative medicine – it’s understandable why people turn to it, but trusted and evidence-based institutions, with an ethical duty to the public, should not be endorsing it as a solution.

For a long list of varying cases where such beliefs led to serious harm, see this link. A non-exhaustive collection of just a fraction of the cases which lead to more serious harm, not counting the likely millions of smaller but still significant harms to people. These are quite upsetting to read but are real downstream dangers of where these beliefs all too often lead. Common dangers include prolonged distress due to wrong info, thousands of pounds/dollars lost, deaths due to delayed real healthcare, suicides, police missing persons cases delayed, fired from jobs, and many more.

So, when you see the next psychic ‘persecuted’ or being painted as the ‘victim’ of a cruel closed minded society, consider the perspective here when compared with real victims of these claims – victims who are part of society just like you and your loved ones. Persecution is a powerful card to play in gaining sympathisers, but only the enlightened truly spare a thought for the real victims.

In reality, I fear that skeptical scrutiny won’t hurt the New Age psychics trade much. There will always be skilled charlatans. There will always be honest-felt, well-meaning collective social delusions. There will always exist emotional and mental turmoil for them to exploit. There will always be vulnerable or gullible people – it’s our nature.

Unsurprisingly, the thought spared is often an angry or despairing one.

…I must conclude on positive note, though – because critical thinking and skepticism is not about being cynical and killing joy, but empowering people by offering its own inner peace and strength. Additionally, an invaluable tool kit for life.

Earlier, I said people deserve their needs met in reality and truthfully. Neil deGrasse Tyson captured this, in response to when asked “Don’t you sometimes feel sad about breaking these myths apart?” –

“No! Because I think myths deserve to be broken apart…Out of respect for the human intellect.”

I think what he means here is not that some people are not intellectual enough, but that we all have the capacity to learn and break free of the superstitious ages of centuries past. Now they can continue to believe in whatever they want, but people deserve the opportunity to have equal access to a truthful approach as well. Notice, he is speaking directly about myths, not judging people.

I meant it out of great respect and fairness to all when I said people deserve reality. Myths, stories, and beliefs are a tough void to fill before learning what truth built on the solid foundations of reality have to offer in their place. I’m talking about absolute beliefs, not escapism, like a fantasy film or a magic show – which the world would be dull without. So, I leave with a quote by James Randi which speaks directly to reality as the most honest and positive way we can progress as a species:

And that includes us all.

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Further Valuable Resources

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Tricks of the trade: debunking psychic abilities & The Perception of Psychic Phenomena.

If nothing else, watch the below two videos. This Investigation and study from Liverpool John Moores University is a brilliant must-read/watch, which tests the perceptions of academic students towards psychic abilities when they don't know he is a magician. Forensic anthropologist and mind illusionist, Dr Matteo Borrini:

• Demonstrates techniques himself that psychics use to make people believe in paranormal powers in a blinded test (the subjects didn’t know he was a magician).

• Shows how significantly powerful those techniques actually are for influencing beliefs.

• Demonstrates how personal experiences are so powerful in getting people to believe.

• Shows how magicians as a profession are parallel to psychics and mediums in their tricks.

• Highlights the perceptions of people towards psychics before and after the blinded demonstration.

• Highlights that deceptive use of such techniques to persuade people of powers is unethical and potentially carries harms.

“Being a magician helps me to debunk alleged psychic detectives, exposing their methods and demonstrating that I can replicate their stunts…It is important that people understand how psychics use the tricks of conjurers not to entertain people, but to milk personal drama, such as a recent loss, which can sometimes be emotionally distressing.”

I highly recommend watching both videos below for a comprehensive look at the study in action. The first video is a 10 minute overview about the purpose and nature of the test. The second video has several sections showing Dr Borrini performing:

• Psychometry   3:18

• Tarot Reading  13:58

• Cartomancy    22:35

• Dowsing for Dead       34:45

• Testing Psychic Abilities          40:37

• Spirit Channelling and Mediumship   50:28

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The Truth Behind Psychic Mediums: A Magician’s Perspective

A great insight by magician Adrian Salamon into a little history of where such beliefs got particular attention and became prominent and lasting in modern times. Highlighting:

• The rise of psychic mediums.

• Why people still hold onto those beliefs.

• What makes a magician a good resource for learning about psychics/mediums.

• Importantly, why debunking these claims doesn’t dispel the sense of wonder and mystery – but adds to the beauty of the complexity of our brains.

That gap in the lives of people seeking some escapism or meaning is something that magic itself can fulfil – something this magician explains in his ‘about me’ page.

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Psychic pair fail scientific test, and cry persecution

I've put together an opportunity to test your knowledge of logic here.

This is a sparse summary of a Goldsmiths University of London experiment, which although the write up is just a summary – it really hits home the usual barrage of clichés that psychics launch into after failing to demonstrate their alleged abilities.

The blinded test results came out as successful as chance alone, as one would reasonably expect if psychic abilities were not real.

Truthful tests always shatter the illusion. The medium Patricia Putt agreed to this test. That means she agreed it should work, prior to it. Once demonstrated a failure, she rattled off 7 of the usual reactions:

1. …this experiment "doesn't prove a thing".

2. …she needed to work face-to-face with people or to hear their voice, so that a 'connection' could be established.

3. "Psychic energy" was not likely to "work" in the setting created for the experiment, she said.

4. …and her success rate was usually very high.

5. Ms Putt said the experiment was designed to confirm the researchers' preconceptions - rather than examine the nature of her psychic ability.

6. "Scientists are very closed-minded," she said.

7. She said…wrong for scientists to think that such mediums "were all the same".

See the pattern that emerges from earlier with Joe? Try for a minute before moving on, to explain what’s wrong with the above statements, even if you were to believe psychics have real abilities.

Expand to reveal the answers

1.      …this experiment "doesn't prove a thing".

1.      Shifting the burden of proof, becoming the victim. It is she who was to prove anything, not the experiment. She agreed to the test beforehand, and presumably agreed it should work. Nobody forced her to.

The test was not designed to prove that her abilities weren’t real. It was designed to rule out non-psychic methods, therefore proving her abilities are real, if indeed they are.

Since she failed to prove her abilities, she is technically right. Except it was her who didn't prove a thing, not the experiment.

2. …she needed to work face-to-face with people or to hear their voice, so that a connection could be established.

2.      Special pleading, moving the goalposts. Almost guaranteed to be the go to excuse. She needs face-to-face contact or their voice to cold read them. This is crucial to rule out, if we are to prove psychic abilities are present, without the techniques we know are not psychic.

3.  "Psychic energy" was not likely to work in the setting created for the experiment, she said.

3.      Special pleading, moving the goalposts. She already agreed to the test conditions before, then said the test wouldn’t work after she failed. Such a strange attribute for psychic ‘energy’ to ‘disappear’ without fail, under test conditions. Perhaps not a part of reality?

4. …and her success rate was usually very high.

4.      Survivor bias, special pleading. Her success rate is usually very high, she says.

Of course it would be when not scrutinised for what it is, when allowed to cold read, and when performed for willing and vulnerable participants who go to her to be told what they want to hear.

Remember, misses don't matter to believers - only hits.

5. Ms Putt said the experiment was designed to confirm the researchers' preconceptions - rather than examine the nature of her psychic ability.

5.      The test was designed to prove beyond reasonable doubt whether her abilities were real, not to confirm any biases.

The point of blinded tests is literally to rule out biases like confirmation bias – especially in contexts such as psychic abilities, where confirmation bias is one of the operating methods psychics play on.

So, no, the test was designed to rule out any preconceptions about how it was done (most notably cold reading techniques) – not confirm them.

6. "Scientists are very closed-minded," she said.

6.      Ad Hominem fallacy, attacking the character of scientists instead of addressing the facts or claims. You hear this one tirelessly from pseudoscience of all kinds, when they don’t like what evidence has to say – ironically proving themselves the closed-minded ones, unwilling to listen to stronger evidence or shift their beliefs based on evidence.

The scientific method itself is as open-minded as it gets. Being open minded is accepting where the majority of evidence leads despite ones’ preconceptions and beliefs. Closed-mindedness is the refusal to change your perspective in spite of the evidence. To quote from this deep dive article on the subject of attacks on scientists:

“More often than not, when someone says “open your mind” they really mean “accept something totally ridiculous without any solid evidence to support it.” That’s not being open-minded, that’s being gullible.”

7. She said…wrong for scientists to think that such mediums "were all the same".

7.     Again, a defensive attack on the character of scientists to portray them as dismissive, not inclusive, or uninterested in being thorough.

First of all, nobody in this test assumed or suggested that all mediums are the same – this is a strawman fallacy (simplifying or mischaracterising what the scientists’ positions were). Further testing of compelling evidence would be welcomed under good test conditions. Also, every time a fair test is agreed with a psychic/medium, they literally tailor it to their agreed personal methods - something they wouldn't need to do if they thought they were all the same.

As a side note, we know already that there are many different ways they can fool us and themselves – so whether real or not, and whether they actually believe they have powers or not, we already know they are not all the same; hence why specific tests are designed for specific claims.

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Real Example of an Online Reading

If you like a story, take this as a great illustration of how typical psychic interactions go. I highly encourage you to read this story, but really think about the details in it.

Some take away points:

1. Readings seem only to work if you believe somewhat. Convenient? Or just how cold readings thrive?

2. Why couldn’t a psychic see through your deception if the thing that makes them psychic is beyond our reach, such as this unprovable, unperceivable ‘energy’, or is deeper than our minds can perceive? Special pleading.

3. Why can’t they simply blow you away with a communication from the dead and tell you who you or they are without you having to confirm? Convenient that there’s always something that would be knowable or probable without psychic abilities.

4. Woo breeds more woo – Follow the money. They have a website which offers many other paid services like inkblot readings and ‘aura’ healing foot spas, dream interpretation, cleansing, pet readings, tarot card readings, and, of course, psychic and mediumship readings.

5. If you blind the tests, the abilities disappear (blind means randomise the sitter, for example, or broadly speaking, control for the possibility of cheating).

6. Strangely, the psychic in this story actually called themselves a 'skeptic' too. This first demonstrates that they don't understand what being a skeptic is, or what critical thinking is (at least that they can't be that good at it). More importantly though, it seems like a social attempt of becoming acquainted or part of the same 'side'. So, a person maybe willing to throw things out there without thinking about what they are saying or meaning.

“There isn’t anything that would convince me.” – this is wilful ignorance. It means that no amount of contradicting evidence could stop them ignoring the truth, in favour of their desires. The very definition of closed-minded.

Every time a psychic fails, the believer says “but what about a 'true and genuine psychic'...?” Try this person instead, etc. This is once again, special pleading, moving the goalposts. A do-over. An disregarding of all previous failures.

The routine is the same. That above statement can happen 10 times in a row. Guess what? Eventually, they will guess lucky first time, sometimes even without vague statements. So for that person, it will seem incredible. But they practice a lot of readings. Maybe they got it right first time for you. But maybe you were the 100th try. And maybe they’re hot reading you.

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Derren Brown on the Supernatural

Press play on the video to automatically play the section where I’m starting this at. (It starts at 49.22).

In this section of a larger interview, Derren talks about:

• How he is always stressing that he isn’t actually psychic.

• Yet how people still believe him to be or feel they don’t care if it’s not true (own biases).

• Discusses the complex and powerful psychology behind these beliefs.

• Highlights how easy it would be to exploit people with his skills, and other tempting opportunities to use them.

• Talks about how accepting that there’s nothing supernatural going on becomes even more fascinating to then watch the actual psychological mechanisms at play.

• Explains the challenges as an honest ‘psychic’ of still being entertaining.

• Highlights just how powerful emotions are, when we can literally know something is not real – and still want it to be, so much, that we accept it anyway – thereby disempowering ourselves.

• Exposing ‘healers’ for their tricks and praying on peoples’ vulnerabilities psychologically.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson on Mercury in Retrograde

Astrology is an old mystical belief system based on no more than historic superstition, these days dressed up as a 'science-y' sounding system in New Age beliefs. Psychic beliefs overlap quite a lot with it, as the psychology is quite the same. Read the Astrology section of the above link for a run down.

Particularly, Astrology beliefs are often associated with narcissism – perhaps a sense of importance that you feel the need to be the center of a cosmic system which influences your life, and a tendency to feel especially important, or in the case of psychics, powerful. As pointed out in the second article, a lack of critical thinking seems to play a role.

Astrology relies heavily on Barnum statements (vague personality descriptors for each star sign, taken personally by just about anyone who reads), confirmation bias (you attribute something happening to the stars and planets, when really something was always going to happen sooner or later), and the tendency to see patterns in otherwise random noise, and perceive them as meaningful.

This is a great video explaining how like most psychic beliefs, the psychology of confirmation bias, needing a ‘meaning’ for bad things and control over ones chaotic life, and avoiding responsibility comes into play.

He mostly explains the cool science of why historically, they used to think that retrograde was a ‘thing’, and what actually causes what turns out to be this illusion.

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Recorded Psychic Medium Reading with Detailed Analysis: Case Study

Awesome detailed analysis of another real recorded psychic reading. Again highlights the importance of recording - even skeptics can misremember and feel pressured into making a reading fit. This is also proof that miss after miss does not matter – the reader was having bad luck this time. However, if you’re there because you want to believe, you will make it fit and form memories that fit the belief - regardless of the truth.

In this example the prop was a crystal and the audience mostly already receptive. Pressing play should start it at 9.20 – or start it in Spotify at 9.20 if preferred.

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Persecution: A Barrage of Poor Logic and Bad Faith Attacks (instead of evidence and reason) – Investigating a Ghost Boy

Time and time again we see the same excuses in place of compelling reason or evidence. Those who feel personally attacked, or who just don’t understand where their logic breaks down, resort to attacking the opposition instead of the argument, and misrepresenting their position to boost the perception of their own validity. In this case below, ‘Kevin’ uses a barrage of Ad Hominem fallacies, and Strawman fallacies.

Kenny Biddle, paranormal investigator, took on a case for the Center for Inquiry, and wrote up the investigation in Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

It’s a thorough, evidence-based gem of a story – in which you’ll find nothing is true about how Kevin represents the investigator (Kenny). Kenny is understanding, gives the homeowner his time and kindness, and together they end up both empowered and happy with the outcome. This, in stark contrast to the outcome of the psychic medium’s visit, who apart from explaining nothing, just deepened the homeowners’ fears – and for money.

Click the above link for an enlightening and rewarding story of critical thinking.

I've taken you through this exercise more than enough in this post, so if you like try to spot the problems with this comment above. Clue: there are plenty.

For the truth of what actually happened with the investigation, unlike this mans' sneering comment, see the link above.

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Carl Sagan: The Demon Haunted World

A truly fantastic book from start to finish, I would recommend reading the whole thing for plenty of food for thought. However I've listed a couple of more specific examples from it below.

Chapter 7: The Demon-Haunted World, page 113 – a great chapter drawing the parallels between life’s cultural impact on paranormal beliefs through the ages - a product of the times.

Also a chilling look back on where and how far poor logic and belief over evidence can lead – to corruption, large scale scams, reinforcement of ideas such as disguised misogyny and mass-sanctioned murder on the basis of superstition (and control of a population).

The chapter is a good illustration of where these illogical beliefs lead if left unchecked, if not called out in the early stages where they seem harmless, or if continually legitimised in small, benign ways such as casual and uncritical acceptance of the paranormal. If we keep being implicit in the acceptance of these beliefs in some small areas of society, the ideas can propagate and grow. If they become too big, they become a dangerous risk on large scales. Even the individual case is, for that person, a risk - as documented thousands of times in the modern age.

False Memories and the Suggestible Mind

Chapter 8 – On the Distinction Between True and False Visions

Page 138 – on hypnosis and the suggestible mind:

“There’s a danger that subjects are – at least on some matters – so eager to please the hypnotist that they sometimes respond to subtle cues on which even the hypnotist is unaware.”

This speaks directly to the fact that there are plenty of psychic mediums out there who are convinced they have paranormal powers – and therefore are not lying, but are actually just unaware of the subtle ways they are reading and influencing the sitter. They are likely mistaking their intuition for some kind of paranormal ability. Of course, it also speaks to how the sitter will provide a lot of the legwork, due to social dynamics and pressures, expectations, and personal biases.

Hypnotism therapy was banned by courts precisely because of the high chance they elicit false memories in the subject and impart their own beliefs into the receptively heightened sitter. Carl also expands on this point in the courts.

You can make the comparison of the therapists’ environment to that of an alleged psychic medium, and they line up perfectly in terms of the social dynamics and influence - even on a skeptical person’s memories of that interaction.

Reprocessed memories, false details, and self-constructed details all play into even the most hardened mind in the correct environment, or with the right kind of misdirection. He alludes to studies done specifically showing this effect, in which blatant mention of false information was taken on as a false memory by study participants' minds, even though they had just watched the video in question. Carl expands on the false memories point, and you can draw comparisons between hypnotist tricks on highly suggestible sitters, and psychic mediums.

The rest of the chapter and indeed the book is well worth reading, touching on studies about false memories in perfectly lucid participants, not just hypnotised individuals in highly suggestible states. Real world historical examples of this then illustrate the ease that ‘harmless’ disregard for logic and truth can slide into real-world danger.

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