I had planned to write an article on cold reading - one of the methods used by fraudulent mediums to convince an awful lot of people of their 'abilities'.
However, in researching the subject, I found several authors who have written very detailed articles already. So I'm not going to bother.
This link goes to an excellent article on the subject,
and so does this one.
What's particularly hilarious about the second one is the presence of those auto-adverts at the top right. This type of advert links the subject matter of the web page to what it considers relevant pages of services. Read the article first, then take a look at the ads. How much business will they get, I wonder?
Well, that's saved me some time. I can work on another of the false-medium's tricks for next time.
Remember, a real medium is as rare as a real ghost. A real medium will never ask you for payment. They don't need your money.
They know which shares to buy.
1 comment:
As in all things, there are real practitioners and fakes.
Unfortunately, there are always many more fakes than genuine practitioners. It is, after all, much easier to fake it than to learn, practice, and put a lot of work into perfecting a skill.
Astrology, for example. I take it you've studied and practised the skill? I have not. You could produce a reading for an individual. I could not.
I could, however, write a newspaper astrology column using the vague predictions described in those articles.
That does not mean all astrologers are fakes. What it means is that there are a lot of fakes who call themselves astrologers.
Part of my job, a big part, is weeding out the fakes.
I can't just accept anyone who comes to me and calls themselves psychic. I have to be skeptical, otherwise I'd be taken in by these frauds.
Real mediums exist. They are not in corner shops, nor are they on TV. They are not wealthy, and have no wish to be. Very, very few are interested in being studied.
If you're looking for a genuine medium to study, it's a real case of a 'needle in a haystack'. Often, it's a needle that doesn't want to be found.
There are debunkers like Randi (who has no scientific training in any subject and therefore, in my eyes at least, has no credibility) who automatically discount any evidence of the paranormal. That is not a scientific approach.
There are others who automatically accept anything as evidence. That's no use either.
If I'm going to find absolute evidence, the first thing I need to do is to remove the fakes. There's proof in there somewhere, but there's an awful lot of junk in the way.
So I am not an automatic debunker, but I will expose frauds, and the methods used by frauds. They don't help my investigations, and they provide ammunition to the likes of Randi.
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