Unmasking the Illusion: A Deep Dive on How Psychics Fool Us
- Admin
- Feb 17, 2024
- 28 min read
Updated: May 21, 2024
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.
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.
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
Probabilities
Pauses
Questions
Set the scene
Detail comes only after a hit
Ambiguity
Make the sitter do the work
Stereotypes
Blaming the Audience
Emotional Manipulation
Visual Clues
Confidence
Misses Don’t Matter
Flattery
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
Derrens Contribution and Set Up
Detail After a Hit, Sitter Does the Work
Confirmation Bias, Self Deception
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...
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
Motivated Memory
Confirmation Bias
Survivor Bias
Appeal to emotion
Emotional Manipulation 2
Misperceiving Personal Experiences
Expectancy Bias
Self-attached Meaning
Avoiding Responsibility
Ideo-motor Effect
Bafflement and Resolution
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.
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
Your Local Area
Social Circles
Prayer Cards, Forms, Census
Undercover Help
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
Experience 2
*[Side point]*
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?
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.
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
Sagan expands on the point
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:
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
Actual psychic Evidence
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
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.
Further Valuable Resources
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
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.
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:
…this experiment "doesn't prove a thing".
…she needed to work face-to-face with people or to hear their voice, so that a 'connection' could be established.
"Psychic energy" was not likely to "work" in the setting created for the experiment, she said.
…and her success rate was usually very high.
Ms Putt said the experiment was designed to confirm the researchers' preconceptions - rather than examine the nature of her psychic ability.
"Scientists are very closed-minded," she said.
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".
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".
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:
Readings seem only to work if you believe somewhat. Convenient? Or just how cold readings thrive?
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.
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.
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.
If you blind the tests, the abilities disappear (blind means randomise the sitter, for example, or broadly speaking, control for the possibility of cheating).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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