Psychics

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“National Association for the Advancement of People Colors” (Aura reading)

BLINDINGLIGHTAn aura is an alleged color outline emanating from an object. Those detecting auras use them to determine illnesses, personality, feelings, and psychological states. If you wanted them to, I’m sure they could also determine your abilities at fishing and casserole cooking.

While the aura concept is less than 200 years old, it is somewhat similar to the halos referenced in monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Meanwhile, the ability to detect them is akin to the Third Eye in Hindu teachings. Buddhists and Jains have similar ideas in less concrete form.

Aura schools of thought teach that every living creature has one, and some have cashed in by reading pet auras. Mostly, however, the field focuses on auras emanating from people. Conspicuously lacking in the field is self-diagnosis. A person seeing their own aura would presumably know precisely what their strengths are, how to capitalize on them, and on what areas to strengthen. Then again, there’s no money in that.

Most readers are either fraudulent or self-deluded. But seeming colors can result from migraines, epilepsy, and after-images. They may also be due to a host of psychological, neurological, and optical reasons. And LSD will certainly do the trick.

There are conflicting ideas about who can see them. Aura readers maintain the field is forever off limits to all except a psychic few. Those who sell Aura Goggles and Kirlian photography equipment insist their products allow anyone to develop the ability. Aura training exercises usually begin with the student staring at an object against a white background in a dimly lit room. Eventually blurred spots will emerge. This is due to retinal fatigue, but a person unaware of this will be excited by their newfound powers.

Psychics assign different meanings to specific colors. There are as many color meanings as there are aura readers. For maximum confusion, we have Robert Bruce, who insists that the auras themselves have colors.

Our bodies do give off heat detectable at the infrared range, and we are surrounded by thermal, electromagnetic, and electrostatic fields. But none of these are consistent with auras described by readers. If psychics could see them, there would not be such a variety of diagnoses.

This lack of consensus on color meaning prevents empirical testing. However, individuals have been examined under controlled conditions and none has performed better than chance. The largest test even undertaken had nearly 1,500 subjects and the control group performed better than the psychics.

The Berkeley Psychic Institute sent what it considered its top aura reader to be tested, with James Randi offering $10,000 if the ability could be demonstrated on a television show. Rarely does a paranormal claimant agree to be tested under controlled conditions, especially on TV, so this indicates the reader genuinely believed in her ability.

Twenty persons were placed behind partitions and she assigned an aura to each of them. She added she could see the auras extending above the partitions. The reader left the room, after which two-thirds of the subjects exited the stage. Back in the room, the psychic said she detected an aura behind each partition, even though only one-third of the subjects were still there. This was either massive failure or the advent of partition aura detection.

Similar tests have placed people in a dark room, with the psychic being asked how many auras could be observed. Only chance results have ever been attained. Not coincidentally, Bruce now insists that auras can only be seen if the person is visible to the reader.

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“Hypnosis Hypothesis” (Hypnotism)

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Hypnosis is a process whereby a person, under the direction of another, achieves increased relaxation, concentration, and susceptibility to suggestion. The effectiveness depends on what is trying to be accomplished, the mindset of the subject, and the ability of the hypnotist. When a person is hypnotized, their brain waves differ than when they are fully alert, but the person is never under the hypnotist’s command.

Hypnosis comes in many forms, so we will go through them, from the legitimate to the loony to the lurid.

The one potentially valuable use is hypnotherapy, where patients try to conquer an undesirable behavior, such as smoking, anger, or anxiety around strangers. There are some success stories here, although cognitive-behavioral therapy might bring the same results.

It is impossible to gauge if these successes are due to hypnosis because double blind tests cannot be conducted. There’s no way to pretend-hypnotize someone. Hypnotherapy is of little concern to the skeptic. It is not fraudulent or dangerous, and some patients see positive results. Furthermore, it makes quantifiable claims, as opposed to increased chakra empowerment via crystals. Also, it focuses on behavior and so is less susceptible to post hoc reasoning, like we would see in a claim that Reiki clears sinuses. The best therapies also involve post-hypnotic suggestion and guidance, where the patient is given a roadmap to continued success.

Analytical hypnotherapy is a form of psychoanalysis augmented by hypnosis. The client delves into thoughts, emotions, and memories under hypnosis, and this can help with serious issues such as phobias or personality disorders. It is important that this be done by a psychiatric specialist under strict conditions.

Here, we delve into the most well-known entrant in the field, the hypnotist show. These involve a dapper showman seating an audience member in a chair and inducing the subject to quack, walk, and look like a duck without actually being so, shooting a hole in that cliché. The subject’s actions are usually the result of conditioned behavior. They have an idea how a person under hypnosis should act, so they respond accordingly. The thought of an enthusiastic audience reaction could serve as another incentive to roll on the floor or to act as if hot coffee is cold. Such shows are sometimes entertaining, more often silly, and almost always innocuous.

Now we enter nonsense territory, our first stop being Past Life Hypnosis. Here, a person is guided by the hypnotist, and by guided I mean taken to as ridiculous a realm as the subject’s gullibility will allow. Most of what is brought forward are confabulations, which are fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about one’s self or surroundings. The subject may describe what 19th Century London looked like, which most people could do a reasonable job of without hypnosis. Past lives are almost always interesting and occur in fascinating times. Memories of past lives could never be proven or disproven, though some hypnotists prefer the even safer avenue of having subjects examine their future lives.

Hypnosis seldom has a place in police work, but sometimes creeps in like other desperate detective measures, such as polygraphs, psychics, and truth serum. It might be of value in rare cases, though it is unclear if hypnosis is necessary to bring the memory back, and there’s the danger of false memories being concluded or suggested.

The greatest area of potential damage involves trying to bring repressed memories to the surface. Here, hypnosis and suggestive language can combine to create false memories of sexual abuse, alien abduction, or having witnessed a crime.

This can be detrimental to the patient and a living nightmare for the falsely accused. The most infamous case involved Gary Ramona, who was fired from his lucrative job and divorced by his wife after therapists used hypnosis and amobarbital to convince Ramona’s daughter that he had molested her.

The most deliberately evil incarnation is command hypnosis, which differs little from brainwashing. Suggestions are forceful, repetitive, and intended to alter a person’s beliefs or emotions. It’s pretty much like commercials except you can’t turn them off.

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“Astro-illogical” (Astrology)

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Astrology is the belief that spinning spheres of rock, liquid, and gas determine the fates of creatures millions of miles away, dictating how much they make, who they love, how annoying they are, and whether they have that second slice of cornbread.

Astrologers offer no explanation for how this works. Curiously, the one celestial body that might impact a person’s life, Earth, is a nonfactor in astrology.

One form of astrology holds that natural disasters are predicted by celestial events. With countless astronomical occurrences to choose from, it’s easy to concoct a relationship between these events and natural disasters. One could also find a correlation between natural disasters and spicy mustard sales or use of the word plenipotentiary, but this would not prove causality.

The overarching idea of astrology is that celestial bodies impact us. But if this were so, why would birth date be the only human factor? The moon impacts the ocean, but ascertaining when tomorrow’s low tide will be does not require knowing where the satellite was when the Atlantic was formed.

The force of celestial bodies might impact future space travelers, but not us present, atmosphere-bound types. Other than the sun and moon, celestial bodies are too distant from Earth to impact us. The key forces in nature are nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational. The nuclear forces have almost no impact outside the nucleus. The electromagnetic force is only a little stronger. With regard to gravity, its pull decreases substantially as distance increases. Something that moves from one location to twice as far away exerts a quarter of the gravitational pull. That same object three times farther away exerts a ninth of the gravitational pull. By the time you get to the 40 million miles from Mars to Earth, the Red Planet has lost all influence on your ability to become more focused.

A few supposed validations of astrology with regard to athletic ability have been claimed. For instance, since 1950, someone born in August has had a 60 percent better chance of playing Major League Baseball than someone born in July. This is not based on whether Saturn was descending, but is because July 31 is the cutoff date used by youth baseball leagues. The older players were stronger, faster, and usually better. Buoyed by initial success, they trained harder and the momentum continued all the way to the Big Leagues. In countries with different cut off dates for athletic teams, the trend shifts accordingly.

Astrology has never been validated by any study. The most serious scientific undertaking was overseen by physicist Scientist Shawn Carlson, who conducted a double blind controlled experiment for Nature magazine. Twenty-eight astrologers were given the task of matching birth charts to psychological profiles, and none performed better than chance.

Not that this meant doom for the field. Some people like thinking astrology provides order to their lives, and most predictions and personality identifiers are general enough to allow for easy shoehorning. Another tactic is using contradictory ideas, such as “You are sometimes shy, but will open up around the right person or situation.” Astrology relies on the Forer Effect, subjective validation, confirmation bias, and selective and elastic thinking.

Vague ideas also help. I found one prediction that read, “With Neptune in Pisces until 2024, we will see political issues coming up involving water.” So rest assured, the last 20,000 years of geopolitics will continue.

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“Misfortune teller” (Clairvoyance)

PALMREADING6Divination is an attempt to see the future or discover secret knowledge through various silly means. Some are well known, such as tea leaves, melted wax, and Ouija boards. More obscure but tastier methods employ cheese, onions, and barley cakes plopped into water. The most specific method I’ve come across is bronchiomancy, which finds deep meaning in the lungs of sacrificed white llamas.

I have no bias against any of these methods; all are equally useless. There are dozens of types of divination, most of which arose as specific to a certain culture. The ancient Chinese used I Ching hexagrams, agrarian societies preferred herbs, while crystal balls became synonymous with Eastern Europe. Romanian citizenship is still a plus in the business. Most divination is done by females, a byproduct of the women’s intuition myth.

Divination relies on magical thinking, apophenia, and pareidolia. If you don’t know these terms, never fear, I’ll guide you through. And that’s a prophecy you can count on.

In an era of technical jargon, euphemisms, and neologisms, “Magical Thinking” stands out both for its simplicity and its rather bold slap in the face of the credulous. It refers to believing in the interconnectedness of all objects and circumstances, and thinking that a powerful force is in control, to some degree or another. It can be as concrete as Zeus dictating the weather, as esoteric as there being another plane of existence, or as vague as being sure there is something else out there.

An excellent definition was provided by psychologist James Alcock who said, “Magical Thinking is the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link.”

Also crucial in divination is pareidolia, which is seeing distinct visions in vague forms, such as Jesus in your maple cabinet or the Face on Mars. It also explains a person detecting satanic praise in a backward Iron Maiden track. If casting sticks, an oracle may “see” a forest, causing the customer to interpret this as a sign she should move out of the city.

Pareidolia is closely related to apophenia, which is finding connections in a meaningless pattern. This signals a segue from the relatively innocuous condition of being easily deceived to the more serious matter of becoming dangerously deluded. John Nash in “A Beautiful Mind” is one example. A more terrifying manifestation was Charles Manson, who interpreted Beatles lyrics and other phenomena as calling on him to act.

It speaks to mankind’s aversion to randomness and can be a way of trying to find meaning, and one’s place, in the Cosmos. Someone searching for a deeper truth may find comfort in thinking something else is in control, be it a goddess, a Tarot deck, or sheep innards. Less charitably, it can involve a bit of arrogance to think that star patterns or random events are being controlled by a deity or force for your benefit.

It can also be a way of dealing with troubling times. After his son committed suicide, iconoclastic bishop James Pike interpreted angles of an opened safety pin and books on the floor as his deceased son communicating to him that he had killed himself at 8:19 p.m.

Ascribing power to divination requires making very generous accommodations. I found a 47-year-old woman online who gloated that her favorite astrologer had predicted the Sept. 11 attacks. She chided foolish persons like myself stuck in our stubborn rationality.

I went to the link she provided, and while it didn’t list the place or method, there was a prognostication made on New Year’s Day 2001 that cautioned, “Beware of a terrorist attack on this date.” Sure enough, listed below was Sept. 11! Less chilling were the 129 other dates listed that incorrectly predicted a terrorist attack for that day. In the wild, wacky divination world, a .007 winning percentage is considered a success.

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“Extrasensory deception” (ESP)

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On March 12, 1951, Dennis the Menace made its first appearance in U.S. newspapers. The same day, another comic named Dennis the Menace ran for the first time in U.K. newspapers. The comics were unrelated, and the artists were strangers to each other. Few people would ascribe any psychic meaning to this Double Dennis Debut, but it’s another matter when a stunning coincidence is personal.

In high school, I had a dream that our girls’ basketball team lost its sub-state final by a point. The next month, it happened. Another time, I dreamt an out-of-town acquaintance came into my place of work wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt. This occurred later in the week. These were interesting experiences, but claiming psychic ability would require me ignoring the thousands of dreams that haven’t come true. In the case of the nocturnal vision about being chased by a spiked ball-wielding Mr. Clean, I’m most grateful.

Extrasensory Perception is an umbrella term, but it most commonly refers to telepathy (being able to read minds), and precognition (seeing the future), especially when it’s personal. For instance, the blue-and-white shirt episode would be characterized as precognition, while foreseeing an avalanche halfway around the world would be dubbed clairvoyance.

Someone may be daydreaming about a college friend they haven’t seen for a while when that friend calls. The tendency for some is to ascribe a higher meaning to this, or to think you two share a special connection. But this overlooks all the times you’ve thought about the friend when they didn’t call, or the calls you got when you weren’t thinking about them.

There are six billion people doing hundreds of things and having hundreds of thoughts every day. So there are untold chances that stunning coincidences will occur, and this requires no supernatural explanation.

Still, the urge to believe can be strong and some have attempted to put a scientific spin on it. Different ESP tests have been devised, with the Ganzfeld experiments being the most well-known. Here, the subject lies in a room with dim red light, white noise, and halved ping pong balls over their eyes. This comes in handy when needing to make a cosmic connection while playing table sports by strobe light.

In these experiments, a sender attempts to telepathically send messages to the subject, who speaks about what he or she is envisioning. There are major issues with how these tests are conducted. They are scheduled for 30 minutes, but the subjects are allowed to start or stop whenever they want. They can start over or stop if it’s going poorly and can stop after a run of “hits.” This takes the idea of experiment, drops it on its head, spins it around, and tosses it in the dumpster, halved ping pong balls and all. In legitimate studies, scientists conduct structured laboratory experiments under tightly-controlled, specified conditions.

Even more egregious is the selective recording of only desirable results. The justification given is that ESP abilities ebb and flow. This would be like a biologist on the Savannah only counting nocturnal animals during the day, then declaring them to be endangered.

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“Seer-iously doubtful” (Nostradamus)

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Nostradamus was a 16th Century Frenchman who spent lots of time staring into bowls of water. Sort of like a chef or fish hobbyist, only without the logic. He claimed to have seen the future in this water, and he wrote prophecies in four-line verses called quatrains. These sometimes mentioned countries or years, but were otherwise cryptic and lacked specifics. They are so open to interpretation that even his proponents disagree about what he predicted.

There have been several books over the past century endorsing Nostradamus, almost all of them claiming he prognosticated major events of the time. None of the proponents have ever interpreted a quatrain to correctly predict something that was going to happen. All are done retroactively. They start with the conclusion, then shoehorn in something that fits. This requires a lot of creativity and downplaying quatrain lines that are less convenient.

The line that gets Nostradamians the most excited is, “The battle will rage against Hister,” since the final word contains five of the letters in Hitler. But this is not an almost-hit of the monster four centuries later. Rather, it refers to the Danube River, which was known as the Hister in Nostradamus’ time and place. Another quatrain mentions Hister, but believing this alludes to the Nazi dictator requires accepting that the only country mentioned in a vision which foresees him is not Germany, Poland, Russia, or France, but Malta.

Proponents argue that one quatrain predicted the death of King Henry II at the hands of Gabriel Montgomery. But that quatrain references a battle, while Henry’s death came in a friendly match celebrating a peace treaty. Also, the quatrain makes mention of a gold cage and two fleets, which have no relevance to an accidental jousting demise. Another quatrain incorrectly prophesied that Egypt would capture the Persian king in 1727.

Some Nostradamus proponents claim this referenced JFK Jr.’s death:

In the year 1999 and seven months
From the sky will come a great King of Terror
To bring back to life the great King of Angolmois
Before and after Mars to reign by good fortune

JFK Jr. was not a king of terror and no one, neither than king of Angolmois, nor anyone else, rose from the dead. I’m unsure if Mars here means the planet or god, but in either case, it was of no more significance at this time than any other. The only line he could charitably be said to have got right was a reference to July 1999. And by that standard, I am a seer if my prediction that there will be a July 2014 comes true.

This is the type of extreme elasticity required when trying to justify Nostradamus as a prophet. Another example is suggesting that “The ancient dame shall fall” is about St. Paul’s Cathedral being destroyed in the Fire of London. The only time the cathedral has gone by this name is when Nostradmians are talking about it. Nostradamus proponent Erika Cheetham, tired of having it pointed out that Hister refers to the Danube, now “interprets” the line as “The battle will rage against Hitler.”

I do give Nostradamus some credit for being a creative writer. And I acknowledge his followers for being creative readers.

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“My trip to the psychic fair” (Undercover at a paranormal expo)

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Today, I attended a Paranormal and Psychic Fair. Purveyors of otherworldly abilities plied their wares to those seeking answers. My body was in no need of healing, Shamanic or otherwise. My aura dislikes being photographed. My essential oil supplies are adequate. So I focused on a medium.

She was a pleasant enough lady, bespectacled with shoulder length, curling brown hair, probably in her late 50s. I watched her do a couple of 15-minute readings of the persons in front of me. Then it was my turn.

“Would you like a reading?” she asked. For a psychic, her vision of the near future seemed cloudy.

“Well, how does this work?”

“I see, hear, and feel guides and I go in the direction they take me.”

“Do you actually hear a voice?”

“No, it’s more of a presence. It’s sort of a hiss, but it varies in intensity. It’s free-flowing, I just go where it takes me.”

“Who are these guides?”

“They are those who have gone before us.” I’m guessing she meant the dead, not the guys she had just done readings for.

“I’ve seen things like this before, but it seems they lack specifics. Why wouldn’t the dead just come out and say who they are?”

“They say what they want to. They only have certain information they want to impart to us.”

On the two readings I saw, what they wanted to impart were extremely vague superficialities delivered in white noise gibberish.

“Oh, I see. Since you’re not actually hearing a voice or seeing anything, how do you know it’s real?”

“Because they are thoughts that I’m not thinking. They belong to someone else.”

“What percentage of the stuff is right? Do you ever miss anything or misinterpret it?”

“I always tell my clients not to worry about what I get right or wrong.” (That makes for an interesting business strategy. I have yet to hear a mechanic tell me, “Don’t worry about the days your car won’t start.”)

“How long have you had this ability?”

“Since I was a child. I didn’t say anything about it because I assumed everyone could do it. As I got older, I realized it was a gift. People would ask me, ‘Why are you always talking to yourself?’”

“How often do you have these feelings?”

“The senses just come over me, it’s like something that wells up from within. It’s not something I have much control over.”

“What does it feel like?”

“Well, it’s really hard to explain.” Certainly, I had heard nothing that would dissuade me from that accepting that description. Then she added, “It’s all in my head.”

I think we just found common ground.

Her previous reading was on a man contacting his grandmother. I was amazed at the coincidence of a deceased person speaking to her only on the day that the grandson showed up.

She said she could do my grandmother, too. Goodness, two dead grandmothers showing up on the day their grandsons came to the medium!

“That is because you are here to direct her. Without having the focus your presence provides, I would have no ability to pull her from the ether. You serve as the channel.”

And here I was, thinking I had no talent as an ether-snatching conduit.

Piecing this together, the gist seems to be that she filters through static, grabs hold of a mystic middle man, then does what the voices in her head aren’t telling her.

Besides speaking to the dead, she also claimed to be proficient in fortune telling, mind-reading, and general clairvoyance.

“Well, it all sounds good. But I’m still uncertain. I want to be sure this is real before I spend money on it.”

“I understand that, but you will leave here a satisfied customer.”

“Do you take Visa?”

“I do.”

“OK. If you can give me my credit card number I’ll know this is real and that I’m spending my money wisely.”

“Oh, it doesn’t work like that. I can’t control what comes. I just filter and interpret it when it does.”

I knew she was going to say that.

Well, gosh darn it, I came for a reading and that’s what we’re going to get. So I decided to do a reading on her. I didn’t say it to her. I just projected it to her telepathically. As she was psychic, that was sufficient. It went thusly:

“I’m overcome by a strong sense that you are excellent at tossing out generalities that apply to anyone. You are resilient and can gloss over your many misses. When I look inside of you, I see a woman who has significant abilities in using the Forer Effect to her advantage. You have a strong ability to impact those around you, filling them with subjective validation and guiding them toward self-fulfilling prophecies. It’s becoming even stronger. It is clear to me that cold reading is a big part of your past, present, and future. You are decisive, as you will reject the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge paperwork I will offer you at the end of this in-body experience.“

She was a nice enough person, but nothing I saw indicated any kind of paranormal ability. If she has these powers, neither she nor her fellow psychics have employed them when buying lottery tickets. None of the powers were of any use on Sept. 10, 2001.

In terms of seeing psychic ability, the day was a wash. There was, however, one correct vision of the future. She declined the James Randi challenge.

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“Horror-scopes” (Astrology)

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My horoscope for the day read, “You don’t have to create everything alone. Life isn’t an individual sport. To live life fully, you must participate. Often this involves interacting with other people. This is an exercise in confidence. Do you want to be with us? Regardless of your answer, outside events will lead you in a direction that you cannot predict.”

Let’s see how this played out. I was tasked to create a social media usage presentation for another office on the post where I work. It was made clear the office supervisor would preside over the meeting’s opening, and that another worker would send me some material for inclusion. So, check on the first prediction about not having to create everything alone and life not being an individual sport.

I participate in the Unitarian Church as the unofficial media relations person and am on one of the welcome teams. I am active in the PTA, spearheaded the creation of the school’s Facebook page, served as school carnival chair, and am co-president for next year. I help out with the community theater group when I can. And, indeed, these activities help me live a fuller life, so check again. And, man, every one of those interactions involves other people. Amazing. And it scores again with the point that I can’t predict things, since I’m not an astrologer.

It’s rather difficult to put astrology to a scientific test, but I did the best I could by creating a control sample. I picked the first line of horoscopes from six signs not my own, to see how well they would have predicted my future.

We’ll go through each of these Pick Six and see if they hit. Lines from the horoscopes are in italics.

Your projects have taken some time to get set up. I had been kicking the idea of this blog around for three months before launching it.

When we have found our path, we naturally want to walk down it. When I left work that day, one foot was continually put in front of the other. In a more figurative sense, I have decided to live the rest of my life in Moline, after having lived in 21 other places before.

You feel compelled to pick up the pieces of the past and save them. Just the day prior, I had cleaned the house, and this included collecting plastic dinosaurs I played with as a child and putting them away.

Your opinion will carry weight later on. The next week, my guest column ran in the Moline newspaper.

The day will be fairly quiet for you. My boss and his boss were both gone that day.

It would be much more reasonable for you to think first about the basic material needs of you and your family. I wasn’t sure if I was going to the grocery store today or later in the week, but now I know.

You can expect to have to settle a number of minor technical problems involving communications or transmissions. That’s what I do every day! This thing is reading my mind.

So it made for a stunningly accurate horoscope. Except that it wasn’t mine.

The reason horoscopes can seem accurate is because they use ideas and terms so general that they will apply to almost anyone. They even use contradictory ideas, such as “You can be indecisive, but aren’t afraid to take a stand.” And it doesn’t hurt to throw in what people like to hear, such as “You have a great deal of untapped potential,” or, “You are someone who can be trusted.”

This was most famously demonstrated in a 1948 psychological study by Dr. Bertram Forer. Participants were given a reading, then asked to rate it for accuracy on a scale of 0 to 5. The average score was 4.4.

It turned out that everyone had been given the same reading. Pieces of different horoscopes and been plucked and thrown into an astrological gumbo. The ideas were elastic and vague enough that they connected with whoever read them, regardless of age, race, class, or gender. This is known as the Forer Effect, where persons put stock in broad ideas because they seem personal.

A similar phenomenon is subjective validation, where an idea is deemed correct if it has personal meaning to the listener. Certainly, the idea may very well be correct. But it might also be wrong, and the tendency when reading horoscopes is to find meaning in it and square it with one’s existence.

Everyone is searching for meaning and significance in life, and when something like a horoscope seems to be filling the need, the tendency is to embrace it. That can lead to many self-fulfilling prophecies, as the person starts acting out the prediction. It is harmless fun for some, put potentially dangerous and psychologically destructive for others.

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“Crossing Over to Long Island” (Mediums)

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Psychics have come in many forms over the years: Soothsayers with their portent of doom; fortune tellers hovering over crystal balls; intense men in suits presiding over a séance in the dark. The most prominent these days is a woman who is from Long Island, is a medium, and is short on specifics.

While the skeptic movement is my greatest passion, I try to keep my posts light and nonjudgmental. That is not the case when I address the likes of Teresa Caputo and John Edward. I reserve great disdain for those who tell persons they are speaking with their dead relatives. I called them vultures until I realized this analogy was amiss. Vultures scavenge from the dead.

John Edward and Teresa Caputo prey on the living, making millions off grieving parents, children, and siblings, when they are at their most vulnerable.

These hucksters are graduate students in the twisted art of cold reading. They will ask, “Is there anyone here that has lost a sibling?” Well, yes, in an audience of 500, of course someone is going to qualify. Then they keep subsequent “guesses” vague enough that they keep scoring “hits” and the person, desperate to think they are connecting to a lost loved one, will buy it, and discard any “misses.” What seems like innocent conversation is actually the medium mentally feeling out the subject. They can gauge body language and voice inflection, and know when to proceed further. On television, of course, any misses are edited out, and there is the possibility of it being scripted.

Mediums claim the dead person is saying they loved music, being outdoors, or family time. Not once has the deceased announced, “My name is Joe and I was born on Jan. 26, 1931, in Tyler, Texas.”

Even some who acknowledge that Edward and Caputo are charlatans believe some good comes from what they do. They think Edward and Caputo offer those left behind peace and comfort. At best, this is true in the short term.

In the Kübler-Ross model, the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Someone who buys what Edward or Caputo are selling is vulnerable to spending an indeterminate amount of time in stages one or three. If someone claims to be speaking to a deceased loved one, the departed might not seem dead at all, and denial is an ongoing process. Those who see the same medium regularly are especially susceptible to the bargaining stage. For a price, the medium will send a few more pieces of netherwordly reassurance your way.

Not everyone accepts the Kübler-Ross Model and, of course, people grieve in different ways. But relying on a medium, rather than going through the normal process, will keep a person stuck in their grief and no genuine healing will occur.