Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Woo

I saw a guy today "locating" and marking underground utilities with dowsing rods.  His markings were all over the place, but seeing how most sewer and water lines are buried parallel the the road, random chance means they'll probably dig in the right place despite his incompetence. 

Fishwrap

Once again, the Post-Gazette wastes a considerable amount of ink promoting nonsense.  Today, we were treated to a two page article in the regional North section on mediums and psychics, without a single word from a skeptic explaining how these frauds take advantage of peoples' grief at $120 to $200 an hour.

So to the editors:  If you really must run this kind of story, do you think you could devote at least a paragraph or two showing how these charlatans do their tricks?  Try googling "hot reading" and "cold reading."  That'll get you started.

Morons Burn Down Historic Home

What were they doing?  Looking for "ghosts."  Then they got frustrated when they couldn't find the imaginary things they were looking for, and decided to have a little bonfire.  Needless to say, drugs and alcohol were involved.

How Come They Never See This?

Another "psychic" goes to prison.

A South Florida woman who claimed to have psychic powers has been convicted by a jury of multiple fraud charges in what prosecutors called a long-running $40 million scam.

What's amazing is how much money was fleeced from the gullible:

One victim was romance novelist Jude Deveraux who testified she gave Marks about $18 million over several years.

 

 

Two Questions

Question one:  Why don't these "psychics" ever win the big jackpot?

The Powerball jackpot stands at $425 million. While that’s a big chunk of change, it doesn’t match the record payout of $590 million in May won by a Florida woman.

Wednesday, we went to see a psychic to get an improbable edge.

“I feel 14 is one number that I’m picking up…”

Springfield psychic Eddie K. is seeing numbers pop into his head – numbers that could be the ticket to millions in tonight’s Powerball drawing....

So we asked for Eddie’s thoughts on tonight’s $425 million jackpot.

“[Will anybody in western Massachusetts win a big jackpot?] I don’t think so. I’m picking up Pennsylvania.”

And as for those winning numbers?

“Because I’m seeing a cluster of middle of the road numbers….”

After scanning the field of numbers in his head, here is what Eddie came up with: “14, 21, 33, 42, and 47, and 17 is your Powerball number.”   

The winning numbers were 5, 25, 30, 58, 59 and the Powerball was 32.  Eddie was wrong on all counts.

Question two:  Why do media outlets continue to pay attention to these frauds and hucksters?

Fun With A Psychic

Well, here's a nice little real world test we can do with a so-called psychic. 

With her mind wide open and her eyes tightly shut, a Sacramento spiritual psychic says she can see the future, even predicting March Madness winners.

“It’s like I’m closing my eyes and I’m able to see them play,” she says.

Tammy Adams calls them mini-movies, showing March Madness in action.

She says she can tell who is advancing just by the energy she feels, even though the spiritual psychic doesn’t know a thing about college basketball.

She's predicting that the final two will be Indiana and Gonzaga.  Doesn't know a thing about basketball, eh?  And yet she's picked the  two number 1 seeds!  Psychic ability, or mere ability to read the bracket chart? 

So far, she's 0-1 as she picked Bucknell over Butler.  Lets see how it goes.

I Wonder....

If she cares to make a prediction on how her trial will turn out?

A West Village psychic who’s accused of being a serial swindler pleaded not  guilty Wednesday to fleecing hapless customers out of at least $150,000.

Sylvia Mitchell, who allegedly stole from Singapore native Lee Chong between  October 2007 and April 2009, was arraigned on grand larceny and fraud charges.  She promised to ward off “bad spirits” in exchange for about $128,000, but  didn’t come through, officials and a source said.

Since there are no such things as "bad spirits" perhaps she did come through?  After all, its pretty easy to ward off the imaginary.  It would be a novel defense, I'm sure.

You Mean...It Can Be Illegal??

OK, I found this funny.

14 Tonawanda ghost hunters  charged with trespassing.

It turns out that all but one were teenagers, so I don't know how serious they were about hunting "ghosts," but is does point up that you've got more to fear from the people who don't want you traipsing about their property than you do from the supernatural.

I'm Shocked, SHOCKED!

Actually, its the least surprising thing I've read all week.

 Police in the mountain community of Crestline have arrested a psychic and accused her of embezzling money from her clients...

The Crestline resident met with Cindy twice. “She told me that I had a spirit associated with me that was not an evil spirit, but a spirit that was unhappy.”

To rid her of the unhappy spirit, the woman was told she would have to pay $9,000 – that would be returned in nine days.

She gave her a third – the $3,000 – and a month later said she wasn’t able to reach Cindy and wasn’t getting her calls returned. “She said she’d been ill and wondered if we could meet in a couple of days. And I said that was fine. Then a couple of days later, she wasn’t returning phone calls or text messages.”

The psychic was hauled off to face embezzlement charges.

Unfortunately, too many people fall for this sort of nonsense.

Another Credulous Reporter

Today in "psychic" fraud news, we read about Melanie Barnum in the Connecticut Post.  The writer, Deb Keiser, assures us that Barnum is "legit."  After all, she studied under James van Praagh (you can read more about van Praagh here)!

Reading the article, its clear that what this woman is doing is nothing more than cold reading, augmented by a little internet research. For example, we read this from the exchange between Barnum and Keiser:

Q: How do you know the answers?

A: When I do a reading, I tune into that person's energy field. Even before  they arrive in my office, I sit in a chair and do a grounding exercise, a  meditation of my own, and then I write some notes that come to me about what I  should share with that person.

That's how I knew you were a petite, energetic and organized brunette even  before you got here. (True: she showed me the notes.)

It took me less than five seconds for me to find Keiser on Facebook, her page contains a lot of information about her, including numerous photographs.  Wouldn't be hard at all for Barnum to do the same.  Deb, you might want to review your privacy settings.

And again, here:

In a different reading, a woman came in who was unsure about her professional  direction. Suddenly I felt I had to say, "I have to talk to you about all the  soldiers. You are digging up all the soldiers." She was stunned, and asked how I  could know that.

That was her moment. It turned out she had started a family research project  and every single generation going back to the Revolutionary War had a soldier  who'd served in a war, including the Civil War, World War I and II. The soldiers  came through to tell her to continue the research, and that she was headed in  the right direction by doing that.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Barnum has an account with a service like Ancestry.com, and routinly does a search on whoever happens to be coming in for a reading.  Wouldn't be at all surprised either if you have to make an appointment, I doubt she sees "drop ins"  (her webpage is silent on the matter, but there's plenty of contact information).  Of course, if she really were psychic, she'd know you were coming, right?

As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, there's a sucker born every minute!