I've mentioned before that I enjoy reading the Postsecret website. People are encouraged to put their secrets onto a post card and mail them anonymously to Frank Warren, the creator of the site. Sending anonymous secrets to a stranger so they can be read by all seems to be emotionally cathartic for the sender. It also helps the reader realize that other people are experiencing similar difficulties (or joys) in life.
This card is something like that, from someone who is respected for a non-existent ability to talk to the dead. I feel sorry for this person because he is trapped by his (or her) "respectable" position. Perhaps he or she is making a living talking to the dead; like John Edward or James Van Praagh.
Wouldn't it be interesting if this card actually was from Edward or Van Praagh?
Hm... Maybe I don't feel so sorry... those creeps have made a bundle by raping the emotions of the bereaved.
I once believed in mediums. I used to think the Ouija board actually worked. I've since realized I was only fooling myself. And I'm not the only person to come to that sort of realization. Even skeptics can deceive themselves that ghosts exist. And although it is easy to fake psychic powers, or fake being a medium, (link 2) it is also easy to believe in your own fake fortunetelling.
And if you make a living at talking to or promoting ghosts, or being a psychic, I guess you have to find a way to live with yourself. Perhaps you are merely "telling stories" for entertainment value - but you should be prepared to offer a disclaimer. CSI writer Philip Howard related an anecdote about that:
A listener once asked a popular national storyteller if she believed the ghost stories she related. “I believe they paid for my children’s college educations,” she replied.
... while the law was useful in fraud cases, "we felt it was hard to say what kind of evidence might be needed to prove someone was pretending to tell fortunes."
The City Solicitor's office got into the act when the attorney for Philadelphia psychic Monica Mitchell filed a request for a restraining order and preliminary injunction on the grounds that the city has to prove fraud before invoking the old state law.
Joe Nickell, of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry has recently written about this. This isn't the first time that Psychics in Philadelphia were stung. (Wait, they were caught out before and they still couldn't tell this was coming again?)
Denenberg’s team enlisted a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl named Kate. Although she was safely at home (for example playing softball in her front yard), the psychics were told that she had been missing since January. Some psychics “saw” her experiencing physical harm; one collected a fee of $50 for reporting her “confined against her will”; and another charged $180 to divine that the girl had run away and was “probably pregnant.” While one psychic envisioned her just two miles from home, another saw her far away in Florida. Not one among the several seers ever divined the truth, that the teenager was not missing and that Channel 10 was conducting a sting operation.
... My own undercover work has repeatedly revealed psychic ineptitude—and worse. Using a false persona, a pseudonym, and disguise (necessitated by my frequent TV appearances), I revealed nationally known “police psychic” Phil Jordan to be a “Psychic Sleuth without a Clue” (Nickell 2004). He had no idea of my real background or identity.
... Many times in my several decades of paranormal investigation, I have visited palmists, card readers, astrologers, mediums, and clairvoyants. Not one ever mentioned the profound fact that I had a daughter and two grandsons I was unaware of (until, wonderfully, she discovered me in 2003) (Nickell 2004; 2005).
Wow, that's harsh. Mr. Nickell had a daughter and two grandsons that he was unaware of. And no psychic was able to tell him that! What devastating information for a skeptic. Perhaps with a single prediction, Joe Nickell could have been converted to a true believe, and a firm supporter of psychics.
Of all the psychics, card readers, palm readers and clairvoyants out there, Sylvia Browne is the absolute worst of them all. Remember Shawn Hornbeck? In October of 2002 he disappeared without a trace, at the age of 11. His parents never gave up hope that he would be found alive, and understandably tried even the desperate measure of talking to famous psychics like Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh, both of whom told the Hornbecks that their son was dead. Both also gave clues about where Shawn's body could be found.
But Shawn was found alive, living with Michael Devlin, in January of 2007. Devlin is charged with kidnapping Shawn, along with another boy named Ben Ownby. Devlin is charged with forcible sodomy, production of child pornography, and several other crimes.
Sylvia Browne never saw any of this. Her psychic ability apparently wasn't working that day.
Robert S. Lancaster runs a website called “Stop Sylvia Browne” and he documents all the other times that Sylvia has failed, or has apparently preyed on the bereaved. I'll warn you about his website – if you're a fan of Browne, you won't like it! And if you go there in genuine interest, you will probably lose an afternoon or two reading all of his material.
But there is a much faster take on Browne, CNN's Anderson Cooper talked about Sylvia Browne's fraud. I'll link to the Youtube archive of that show. (It has James Randi in it too!)
There's an old joke that asks, “Why does a psychic have to ask for your credit card number?” Jokes about the lack of psychic ability only scratch the surface. If they can do what they say they can do, then why is there so little evidence?
This card is something like that, from someone who is respected for a non-existent ability to talk to the dead. I feel sorry for this person because he is trapped by his (or her) "respectable" position. Perhaps he or she is making a living talking to the dead; like John Edward or James Van Praagh.
