"Psychic" Psychopaths Have to Go
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ABOUT: Rebecca Watson is the founder of the Skepchick Network, a collection of sites focused on science and critical thinking. She has written for outlets such as Slate, Popular Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She's also the host of Quiz-o-tron, a rowdy, live quiz show that pits scientists against comedians. Asteroid 153289 Rebeccawatson is named after her (her real name being 153289).
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When my cousin's dog died, my Aunt told him that the dog had been drafted (it was the height of the Vietnam War). *Forty* years later, at a party, my Aunt casually mentioned that the dog had died, and my adult cousin, was shocked by the news. In a hushed voice, he asked, "Did he die in the war?" Please don't lie to your kids, people.
This made me laugh really hard, thank you
Thank you for his service.
Tbf most Vietnam vets have passed away.
i laughed for ten minutes holy shit
@@jekanyika SO WE CAN'T EVEN TALK TO THE DOCTOR WHO TREATED HIM ON THE BATTLEFIELD???
When my grandma died I was talking to a friend who thought she was psychic. She casually said “she’s behind you by the way”. My grandma was abusive and the idea of her spirit following me around horrified me. We’re not friends anymore.
Yeah, as messed up as human families can be, I find the idea of seeing some of them in an "afterlife" for "eternity" to be extremely distressing.
Sounds like a horror movie jump scare.
@@terryflynn6927 no, having a “spiritual intuitive” friend is much more irritating.
Have you also found that these types are smarmy and assumptive as a human could possibly be? I cannot stand them. It’s a constant performance they’re putting on for everyone else around them.
I had to explain to my, then young, child why they didn't get many toys for Christmas while the bully down the street got a lot. I immediately asked my child, "It is okay to still believe in Santa if you'd like."
"Yeah, I think it's fun to believe in him!"
Love the way that spirits only tell the psychics only the first letter of their name.
I never understood this aspect of spirits or ghosts. Why do they just completely cease to be the people they once were, especially in effectively communicating what they're doing and what's going on? I always felt that if I became a ghost, screw charades, I'm talking!
I can understand not being able to see all of the name for some reason, but why is the first letter or two always the clear ones? Why not the middle or last letters?
tbf they probably only got like 2 bars
@@megamillion5852 but they DO effectively communicate.
in whole complex sentences.
just not actual names.
hmmm.....
Well the English alphabet is of course a fundamental building block of this world's spiritual reality, didn't you know? John Dee and Edward Kelley taught us as much
You don't have to sugar coat it. He IS a sociopath. His dead great-grandmother told me so.
I think she's trying to avoid getting sued for libel. I'm sure this guy has good lawyers.
@@robadams1645 Of course, but I prefer the spin of playing his own game.
😂😂
His eyes seem blank and empty...
That “smile” he did in the interview is chilling.
A psychic dwarf escaped from a maximum security prison today.
Police are said to be looking for a small medium at large.
If anyone ever tells you they are psychic, just say, "I knew you were going to say that". Shuts them up every time.
*(giggles)* LOL! 😁
I read this joke in a Readers Digest in 1969. True story.
Dad? Is that you?
I remember seeing that joke in (I think) one of the Callahan's Saloon books. Man, that was such a great series.
Wait, but Rebecca, how did you know I was going to click on this video?😮
Crazy how she knows to start speaking immediately after I click play!
I once ran into a psychic. I let them think they had my whole life figured out, then at the end I told them "actually my grandma's alive, and she lives in Michigan, and none of what you said was right." I just mislead their cold reading. Funny. If you ever meet one of these people. Fake emotions. Pretend you're moved by random shit, then tell them you got they ass, 😂
It's amazing how fast "psychics" completely fall apart if you just sit there and dead-fish them by having no expression, not answering their questions, and generally giving them no feedback cues to cold-read from.
@@wasd____ But i already do that to everyone
@@no_peace You're not antisocial, you're antipsychic. You should avoid parties as they're a lot like séances.
@@wasd____ that happened to me many years ago w/ a 'prophet'. they had nothing on me because i was too frightened to even move...
after a while they attempted to put some bs together for me (after they've spoken 'life changing' words to others in the room) and it didn't make any f sense. i thought about what they said for years trying to 'descipher' it...
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i've been out of the game for a while but just today i clicked on 2 childhood friends' fb profiles and both are neck deep... both have kids they take to rallies against 'demonic lqbtq agendas' :(
If they’re any good they’ll deflect and say, “oh your deceitful nature is jamming my psychic 5G reception, I must have gotten a wrong number. You have to be fully cooperative for this to work, blah blah etc….”
RIP James Randi.
He's up in Heaven now with Kurt and Isaac.
Might be fun to hire a medium to communicate with James Randi, just to watch them try to keep a straight face as you give them details about his life's work so they could get a "stronger connection".
James Randi the fraud can rest tin hell...4th spiritual dimension.
@@Erinski Bucket List item # 74. 😊
@@GSBarlev How would an atheist make it up there?
You really have to watch the humor. I think I almost had a heart attack of laughter after I hear the phrase "PR Fellatio".
Psychic Macaulay Culkin here could have gone down the road of becoming a grief counselor if he wanted to help people process their emotions. But scamming is easier since you don’t need credentials to roleplay as somebody’s dead relative.
🤣 no offense to real Macaulay Culkin who is actually pretty cool
My grandma died recently. I've been getting unsolicited "offers" on facebook to contact my grandma. I never asked for them. I simply posted a memorial about my grandma so distant family could be up to date. It is so fucking ghoulish.
An example of the 21st century's worst invention. Targeted Advertising.
I'm so sorry for your loss, and I'm also very sorry that you are getting that crap on FB.
I won't tell you that I'm psychic and.csn channel the dead, but I will say this: energy never dies, it only transfers elsewhere.
Lawnmower rattlesnakes get the best of us😢
RIP Mee-maw.
If not for budget cuts, they might have had the antivenom to save you!
When my midkid started solo driving about 10 years ago, shortly after leaving the house on one of his first drives, he called frantically describing an 8 or 9 foot rattlesnake in the driveway. I advised him that must be someone's escaped python, but met him out there and saw the < 3ft specimen of an Eastern diamondback. He said it had seemed bigger at first, but to this day, we are always on the lookout for driveway pythons.
@@christaylor9095 My fiance loves snakes and until recently he had a rather large boa, and there is no way a snek under 3 ft cud be mistaken for this hulkin beast xD
Notably, and that was a rather young boa still, she was only half as big as she will one day become. We sadly had to give her away tho bcuz importin sneks like her across state lines is either just illegal or a huge headache and legal fees that weve not got; that and also my fiance got the snek when they still had his late husband around... And they just cant handle the snek without his help, even with me and my metamour here; that late husband was the most abled of all of us heh, so theres quite a lot we cant live up to that he was capable of :3
But yeah, even at around 6 ft like this snek was, its clear as day from even just seein part of this snek that its not a small snek at all; cuz just so much more girthy than your avg 2ft snek wud be
@@christaylor9095 not gonna look it up, but i think 8 feet or so IS at the upper limit of rattlesnake size. or close to it.
just saying perhaps it was remotely possible your kid, mid as he was, was right.
doesn't change how funny it was when the snake was 3 feet.
@@christaylor9095 Are you suggesting that a rattler only being 3ft makes it less terrifying?
I remember seeing an interview where someone challenged Tyler Henry by saying that if he were just making it up "you'd be a pretty bad person, wouldn't you?" He flinched as he said "I would!"
Okay? And? You probably watch these bullshit “body language experts” and yet think you’re soooo anti-pseudoscience huh 😂
@@clarkem.5269you’re mad 😢
I've had people tell me they think I'm psychic/clairvoyant/a prophet. I'm not. I just have a good intuition. I can simply guess things pretty well. I consistently correct people when they say I'm psychic. I grew up in a cult and the members followed prophets who preyed on them much like psychics prey on their "clients." I would never do that to people. I've seen the damage it does. It's a special kind of evil in my book. My oldest noticed those things that people said about me a while back. He describes me in DnD terms as high charisma. We have a joke in my family that I'm not allowed to start a cult because my kids think I could. There's no real risk of that though. I have zero desire to control other people. After leaving the cult I was raised in, I'm content just to have full autonomy, control over my own self and my own body. If I took advantage of people like described in this video, I would never be able to look myself in the eye. I would probably never sleep again because I had become the very thing I sought to escape all those years ago.
Hugs from afar. You're doing great!
I think that's exactly it: you're just emotionally intelligent and/or emotionally aware in a way that others aren't!
It might not be a literal superpower, but I'm sure it comes in handy anyway :)
The better "psychics" use a lot of the same techniques police interrogators and poker players do to "read" their subjects: observing body language. What people call intuition is often subconscious use of exactly that. You should try playing poker.
good for you, it would be really easy to use your skills for evil like these "psychics"
Have you considered writing a story based on your life? Or working with cops to talk to folks in interrogations? You could use your skills for good.
(Explains why you're magical)
My favorite outing psychic is a woman saying a kidnapped boy was murdered. Except he was rescued years ago and he's sitting in the same restaurant, a grown man. Her reaction was funny.
The one where the reporter shows the psychic a picture of a "missing girl" except it's a photo of the reporter when she was young is really great too
@@demagreg love that one too
@@demagregI’ve seen that one. The “psychic” looks at the photo and says “This little girl was murdered.”
The reporter says, “That’s a picture of me when I was a young girl.”
The “psychic” seems genuinely bewildered and asks, “You didn’t die?
The reporter sort of looks down at herself, then says, “I’m right here.”
I think the one with the "murdered boy" in the restaurant IS Sylvia Brown. Still didn't stop her.
@@andchimeras I remember Sylvia Browne saying that JFK Jr will be elected president that year and he died a few months later.
I suspect some of these “psychics” are sadists and “energy vampires” who enjoy the grief their victims feel… and the power they can have over them.
"Energy vampires" are also pseudo science.
One time in college, they invited a "psychic" to give a demonstration in the dorm I was staying in. I decided what the hell and went to see. The guy was cold-reading like crazy, and people were buying it. As a finale, he offered to do Tarot readings for a few people, so I figured why not.
I was stone-faced and didn't give anything, so the entire time he was turning over cards going "oh, um, I got nothing, that's weird." Then we get to a final card that supposedly was meant to represent the "hidden forces" in my life, and he said "do you want me to turn it over?" Well, of course. He did, and he said "that card doesn't mean much, but I saw an image in my mind of a two-headed snake." A 2-headed snake tends to attack itself to its own detriment. A little generic and common, but an accurate read of parts of my personality.
Neat. Go about my evening and life.
I thought about it and realized later that there can be value in having someone cold-read you, because they might see aspects of yourself that you miss. It's not mystical, just some possibly useful insight into yourself that can only come from someone on the outside looking in.
I'm not a psychic, but I like to yell *"I CAN SEE THE FUTURE!"* whenever I'm right.
Who doesn't?
I can bend spoons with my mind*
* by using my hands
@@unoriginalname4321 Subtle, like a sledgehammer. ⚒️
My friend created a website many years ago calling out Sylvia Brown. He was a good friend to the Amazing Randy. He was part of the skeptics society till his death about 10 years ago. He taught me not to believe everything I hear and to investigate and question everything. I wish he was still around. OMG! You just mentioned my friend Robert! We went to high school together. We remained close all those decades. Nice to meet you, Rebecca. I’m now a new subscriber.
When I was growing up, I had this neighbor who claimed to be a psychic. Our cat got out of the house and we were all devastated. After a few days, the psychic told my mom our cat had been killed by an owl. Mans showed back up at our door like a week later very much alive. Such a weird thing to predict
I always found it illuminating that Mulder's poster said "I Want To Believe" rather than "I Believe". Grief of bereavement can be so overwhelming that people lose whatever rational thinking they may once have had and the psychics then provide answers for them that mere priests cannot.
Yeah, I'm a hard skeptic, but I still want to believe. There's a lot of stuff (alien contact being right at the top) that I don't believe in at all that I so fervently want to be proven wrong on.
@@igmusicandflying I found Stargate SG-1 helpful in sorting out my thoughts about the greater Universe. And about our blithering insignificance.
Whatever people need to find comfort and put their lives together so they can move on is fine with me. Mediums, whether charlatans or not, have helped a lot of grieving people.
@@Andrei-sg7lu Do they help people? I don't think that clinging to a lie is healthy for anyone. Accepting the finality of death is the best way to cope, any other way you are just avoiding the issue
Mere priests absolutely cannot. I'd trust a psychic much before a priest.
holy shit, I didn't know that last part about Amanda Berry. that is one of the most horrible things I have ever heard. :(
Wait...Amanda Berry...
Why does that name sound so familiar? 🤔
Cleveland house of horrors girl. Her mother was told by that ugly old psychic on the Maury show that her daughter was dead and gone forever. Her mother died thinking her daughter was dead because of that awful woman. She stole her hope away and she died of a broken heart according to her loved ones.
@@InsertHandleHere968 And that's why psychics are sociopaths.
Psychics are indistinguishable from Christian preachers, claiming to know things they don't know, arguing that they are performing a beneficial service to their marks, all while profiting. The lies are different but it's the same business.
Same techniques, different words.
Christianity, better yet, Jesus Christ and SPECIFICALLY the Bible is VERY REAL, and I hope you find Jesus before it’s too late. PS, the Bible is the MOST ACCURATE book ever written. It’s funny you assume preachers lie about the future (which they get their information from the Bible) but I guarantee you’ve never even read the Bible.
I think the lies come when they talk just because they're on a schedule, so they say any feeling they feel or fleeting thought they have at the time is spiritual. I truly believe in divine wisdom being given to help others, but it's not on our timing or for our own gain. And anyone can be the messenger. It's an "I'm sharing this because I want to help you" thing, not an "I know something you don't know, so pay me" thing. I don't think it's something you can make appointments for.
That clip with Jim Parsons was so telling. Parsons said that he got his grandmother’s name right away, when in fact, he told the psychic what his grandmother’s name was on camera.
I know Jim Parson is just the actor playing his part, but seeing Sheldon being so credulous is just sad.
That's totally why they picked him
It hurt me to see that. I liked the actor, not just the character. I thought the actor was less gullible than that.
@@Cat_Woods You have *met* humans, right?
@@rog2224 Yes. Just did get an impression of the actor as well.
aye cause the character of sheldon would have questioned it till the psychic broke down in tears
I don't think you have to be so strict with the "allegedlys" -- what's he going to do, sue you and then have to prove his psychic abilities in court??
"No one gives a sh*t where that quarter went."
When I was about three I had a foster sister. She was a little older than me. She had recently learned how to do simple magic tricks palming things. On this particular day we had a table fort. We were playing under the table... we even had a lamp under there for light. He had a bowl of raisins. She pretended to be putting raisins up her nose.
I idolized her and was fascinated with magic. I tried to do the trick without understanding the trick. I ended up at the doctor's office where the doctor extracted the raisins with tweezers, keeping me from possibly aspirating it. It was not a quarter, but sometimes that matters. :)
Now that's funny!🤣
I could not believe CBS Sunday Morning aired a piece on Tyler Henry! For a few minutes I assumed it was a dark parody of CBS Sunday Morning, but then I realized "no, this is really CBS Sunday Morning."
I know. I thought I’d slipped back into the 70s somehow and the next story was going to be about President Carter at Camp David.
Dark Parody is more or less the timeline we live in.
Seriously. Who's worse? The liar pretending to be a psychic? Or, an entire television network that is willing to air this crap for viewers and money? This is another way that I know that they WANT us to be stupid.
I'd have some respect for CBS if they had a financial interest in publicizing Henry's show, but I suspect it's just that the morning show's producer thinks he's legit.
Closest TV came to honesty on the topic was "The Mentalist" Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) repeatedly saying contemptuously "Oh please, there's no such thing as a psychic"
Leverage did a great episode exposing the scam too with Luke Perry playing the scam psychic.
@@HulaHula667 Not familiar with the show. I'll look it up, tks
@@christopherbedford9897 they had a fantastic research team and each episode was very well written and done. I’ve not gotten around to watching the sequel series, but the original I will always recommend.
I highly recommend Psych. He does lie about being psychic, but it's just a gimmick to get people to hire him- he's actually a brilliant detective and always solves the case. It's really about the power of observation and how if you're extremely observant the average person views it as a supernatural ability. It's really funny, too!
@@pinklight I had forgotten about Psych. Yes it was fun - not especially plausible, but fun 😅
The British mentalist/magician Derren Brown did a tv programme about this sort of thing, where everything the 'psychics' did he did, but better.
love him
Hilarious how these charlatans continue using the same techniques they've been using for decades.That little smirk that he gives at the end of some statements is creepy AF.
There's nothing about this guy that isn't creepy AF
It’s probably something he’ll smooth out as he gets more practiced, he looks for social cues in people’s faces to see if they believe his lies. Ironically, we see eye contact when talking as a sign of trustworthiness, but he’s actually looking to see if his BS is landing or if he needs to redirect and try the lie another way. He smiles unconsciously because he knows his lie worked.
Dude smiles like a lizard.
No idea if the ‘duper's delight smirk’ is based on good science, if it is, then perhaps his is one of the best examples of it. Always feels very creepy and unnatural in relation to its inappropriateness to the situation. He reminds me a little of The Riddler.
@@grouchomarxist666 don't slander lizards like that, they are quite successful and helpful animals in their own environment. Unlike species traitors like "psychics" and "preachers"
My husband learned cold reading techniques as a teenager and uses them in his job a lot to help him determine what is going on with people. He tells me that it's just being able to read social cues easily.
I will say, I do enjoy letting my friends read tarot cards for me for fun, but none of them ever seem to be predicting anything. We mostly do past life readings or general motivation readings. My favorite past life reading was that I was once a port to port salesman with a lover in every port who eventually got murdered because of it. It's very funny to think of me in that situation. But the biggest difference is that my friends don't charge me for some fun.
@@bboops23I'll very occasionally let someone pull out the tarot deck without immediately leaving purely for entertainment. It tells you way more about the person doing the "reading" that it'll ever tell you about your own future, and sometimes that's amusing.
When my cousin was missing my mom talked my auntie out of seeing a psychic who used to give people bad news and into seeing one who was known not to give bad news, who gave her some hope. I remember the day we found out he was dead when the memory hit in the middle of the general grieving... Grieving isn't a big enough word when it's your child... The realization hit that the psychic was wrong..
There's something so awful about these scams that I have no words
I misheard “Hamster dies” as “Hamsterdize” and lost all attention on the video as I free associated on the meaning of this word. Something to do with the futile task of running in a wheel or being an adorable creature forced to live in a poop prison for the sake of someone else’s amusement.
That kid looks creepier the older he gets--and less believable--to himself, you can see on his face that he's actually growing LESS CONFIDENT of his own abilities years later as he gives a "reading"
I remember seeing him on tv when he first began, his mom driving him from celebrity house to house--he didn't even drive for some reason--I think she would prep him.
Ugh, that psycho smile he does @8:57. Real-life vampires.
OMG I thought the same! Creeped me the frack out!
That sociopathic "I am SUCH a good person for doing this" lying to themself.
"I'm gonna pat myself on the back cuz I did the bare minimum. Where the fukc is my medal?" Grandson: We Did It🎵
I had a manager who clearly was sociopath. So often she'd paste a smile on after saying something that had no basis for a smile to follow. Fake as fake could be.
Anyone that keeps Randi's legacy alive is Amazing in my book, thank you Rebecca for calling the charlatans what they are
...Amazingly stupid to support a fraud like james randi...
My parents got into the psychic stuff long enough to take me with them on a retreat where we all discovered that I have a very natural and intuitive ability to cold read. The people running the thing called me "gifted" and I just giggled about it. That was the end of my parents interest.
Children are naturals. It's what they are taught to do from birth and only get away from as they enter adulthood.
Jesus fucking christ, I've hated Sylvia Brown(e) since she first landed on Montel. My mom used to watch her bullshit and even bought a couple of her books that she thankfully never actually read. I remember both the episode you played the clip of and the one where she told the lady her daughter was sold into "white slavery". That stuff about the lady that was kidnapped is fucking horrible though.
I kept trying to explain to my mom that that fraudster (you can say that without the "allegedly" in her case, she has a convitiction for fraud) was full of shit but she wouldn't believe it. It was always the "you can't prove she doesn't have psychic powers" crap. She used to watch that hack, John Edwards too. What finally got her to wake up to the fact that all these people are frauds was of all things the police procedural show "The Mentalist" where the titular character broke down how all the psychic bullshit works as he uses it against the bad guy of the week.
I loved watching her crap. lol… she was so wrong.
It's like when she told Shawn Hornbeck's family he was dead but was later found alive.
My aunt on my mum's side died of cancer at 26 when I was 10. I knew she was really ill but the night before she died, I dreamed of her in a strange setting, we were out in the woods in front of a cottage we spent a holiday in and she approached me wearing a long white dress, the colours of her dark red hair, the greenery all around and the white of her skin and dress were so startling that I can picture it to this day 50 years on. I did know she was very ill but I had never seen a dead person and didn't know about what people wore in death, or even in hospital actually. I remember waking up and knowing she was dead and my mum told me later that day. I can't explain the vividness of the dream, the setting, as I had never seen her there, or the odd white dress. I stood with her, holding her hand and knew on waking she had died. I don't believe in psychics as I study biology, both at college and now, in my spare time. So I need proof and don't entertain magical thinking.
My name is John and you knew I was watching... chills...
I think you are missing the real conspiracy. He PUT that rattlesnake in the lawnmower!
😂😂😂😂
Dr. Sheldon Cooper just lost all respect he had for the actor who embodied him.
Then again, Sheldon Cooper is an unlikeable prick, so it is no big loss...
Jim did one of the ancestor tracing shows, one his ancestors was King Louis XV's state architect and the cathedral the interview was filmed at was one of the places the ancestor designed.
What makes this even more ironic is that Dr. Cooper has contempt for psychics. He even called one a fraud to her face in one episode.
Whatever nostalgia and goodwill I had for Big Bang Theory died a long time ago.
They just make the same lazy jokes over and over and over again - was it always this bad and I just didn't notice, or did the jokes start off being original and funny? I kinda wanna watch season 1 again to check. Then there's the stuff about Mayim. And there's just a lot of misogyny and promotion of harmful stereotypes and stuff.
@@blueredingreen no, it stays shit, and it gets more sexist (if anything).
It's literally just "HAHA THESE ARE THINGS NERDS SAY, WHAT DO THEY MEEEAAAANNN?" _The Show_
I use to love doing tarot readings for folks. I would always emphasize that it was only a possible outcome. Then I started emphasizing that it was only for entertainment. I stopped when after an office Halloween party I gave a coworker a reading, just for fun, and she clearly got very invested in the possibility of getting pregnant. (If I remember correctly I said something about new life and possibilities.) She and her husband had been struggling for a couple years due to infertility. It felt wrong getting someone's hopes up based on nothing but random card draws.
I still collect decks, but I don't do readings anymore. That was over 15 years ago. I also think that those feeling lead me to questioning my belief in Wicca. Been an atheist for 5 years.
I stopped doing tarot readings for the same reason. I only did a few for other people, and the last one was really nice and positive, for a recent widow I knew, but I could see the weight she was putting on my words. I could see how much she needed to hear the "right" things...and maybe I'm not the best judge of what she needs to hear. It opened my eyes to the harm I could unwittingly do.
I think tarot actually has some value, not as a predictive tool at all, and not for any supernatural reasons. Say you're struggling with an issue and you don't know the way to go. Just draw random cards from the tarot deck and make up a story about your issue using whatever pops in your mind when you see the cards. Sometimes the hardest part is just starting the process. Like a story prompt for fiction writers, the imagery of your cards can spur your creativity. If you approach it that way, and if you do a reading for someone else, make it clear that's your approach and disavow any mystical significance in it, I think it can be a good thing.
If you play dnd I reccomend using them in dnd because Magic is real there lol
Anyone that studies tarot knows that it can be used for things beyond mere fortune telling.
@@igmusicandflyingI was taught to use tarot based on archetypes, and yeah, it can be a very useful tool for when you're indecisive. Predicting the future, not so much, for all the reasons people have already given here.
That's kind of where I'm at with all this stuff. I completely disbelieve psychics for all the reasons given in the video... but stuff happens. My current best guess is it's not special powers, it's something that could happen to anyone, and we just don't understand how it works yet -- because it definitely doesn't work the way the believers say.
My aunt is a telephone psychic. I don't think she claims to speak to the dead; she's more like an unlicensed therapist who advises people on the premise that she can see the future. Still pretty harmful, though. From the sounds of it, she's exploiting people who probably should see a real therapist; she mentioned that a lot of her clients are calling her because they're dealing with some sort of crisis.
She's been at this job for almost all my adult life (I turn 40 this year). To this day, I'm not really sure how much of what she does is intentionally deceptive or whether she fully believes that she has powers. I'm not really sure if it matters - the end result is the same, which is that vulnerable people are being scammed.
Lord, I yelled at my TV so much when they did the story on CBS Sunday Morning. I'm sure my wife rolled her eyes, but I've never been so "old man writing in to the network" than that.
I did write to CBS...
To me Randi's most important work was testifying repeatedly against the polygraph.
Cops still try to use the thing constantly but it can't be used against you as evidence of a crime (which is good because it's always fake so they would falsely convict people a lot)
It measures stress level, with poor accuracy.
You may look into the Alec Murdauch"?" case.. the Feds used polygraph against him. No lie, lol
You just described exactly how my grandmother died by snakebite in the middle of the night except that my father was there to pick up a lawnmower. Fraud confirmed.
John Oliver taught me that purchasing this segment is not very expensive advertising but effective.
When my grandparents went to a psychic about their parents, they said "Well, they said she cooked, and she never cooked. They said she was happy with dad, and she was never happy with dad. But they said she was enjoying the after life and is proud of us. So i'll take what i can get."
Really weird behavior from church three times a week christians...
My mom loves Tyler Henry, and believes he's 100% the real deal. Even showed me a segment where they did a brain study on him. To show me he's real and science backs it up. If i recall right, it showed elevated activity in some part of the brain that had to do with dreaming... As if that proves anything. I love my mom, but it's all so exhausting.
It was very very cathartic to hear you call him a sham. Thank you
I'm very good at active daydreaming, guess that means I have powers lol, I should get a tv show
My mom showed me the exact same thing. She loves him and the Long Island Medium and has gone to see both of them live and it kills me, I want to make her see that they're frauds but she's so into it.
I think one of the biggest problems of modern western society is that we have learned to distance ourselves from everything we deem inconvenient and ugly. Death is one of those things. Perhaps the biggest one. So many people live in constant denial of their own death or the death of loved ones, and the death of outsiders gets marginalized and shoved under the rug. If our society learned again to face, understand and accept death, we might be less afraid, and lead happier lives in general.
I heard "worked at a magic shop", and I thought, "oh, Rebecca played Magic: the gathering, as well? Cool."
I bet Rebecca's grandmother would be proud. See? Positive vibes can be had fraud-free.
I loved seeing Indy chilling out on the patio! More Indy, please!
That said, my wife would occasionally visit a psychic/tarot card reader/astrologer just because she knew she was paying someone to say something nice about her. And, for the most part, she was never disappointed: she knew they didn't REALLY have arcane powers to peer beyond the veil, but made a living saying nice things about people.
On the other hand, when we attended University of Houston, Clear Lake, they'd have an annual "Back to School Bash". Many of the school organizations had booths there, and the Psychology Club was no exception. Their schtick was phrenological readings. We both got readings. To this day, neither my wife nor I remember what the "reader" said (we all knew that phrenology was pseudoscience and made no bones about the fact), but what we DO remember is that we got the BEST head massages we've EVER had!
I’m a psychologist. This is so sick and degrading. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve seen who have been deeply damaged by this ideology.
Don’t get me started about people who have been convinced they have MANIFESTED their own childhood sexual abuse because “law of attraction” or whatever other garbage. It’s heartbreaking to sit with someone who has endured unthinkable brutality and see they are convinced of this rhetoric. As a survivor myself, it stirs an unending drive to provide comfort and fight against such tangible and existential abuses.
You’re absolutely right about the harm of psychics, in my opinion.
My childhood pup was "sent to live at a dog retirement farm" didn't find out what that meant till I was about 27 years old 💔
I started an internship with an internationally known horse trainer. When I began my education, I didn’t know she believed she was an animal communicator. But by the end of my education(in horsemanship, which was solid)she had divested into being more about the animal communication. I had to leave the organization. I won’t be a part of something so predatory and full of lies.
Why is animal communication so predatory? I genuinely don't understand why you would see it that way?
@@Kayebonniestorm Because it isn’t real and tell someone you can speak to their animal for money is a low I can’t touch. A lost pet? They give hope for it to be found or crushed to learn of their death. Only to have the opposite to found true. Believing you can give a medical diagnosis from the “word” of the animal is beyond unethical.
And for money. Cold reading is an old trick, and even a broken clock is right twice a day. Sure, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that it’s real, if you ignore all the evidence it’s not real.
Love your animals, but do it for what they are; a being that can be bonded with despite the language barriers. A being that sees you for who you are through your actions and not your words.
Telepathy isn’t real, it’s a con artist’s tool to swindle a fool.
I have seen it from the inside and it’s just not right.
My grandmother recently passed and while I was stricken with grief, my sister told me a story in the car on the way to the funeral. Her and myself were born at 2:22am and 2:22pm respectively, so 2:22 has always been a favorite number of hers. After my grandmother passed, my sister got a text from a friend at 2:22pm telling her she saw her at the store and wasn't able to say hello. My sister said "grandma was sending me a sign telling me she's okay". I wasn't sure how to react, but I didn't want to tell her I don't believe in that kind of thing, and I was also emotionally tired, so I just nodded and sighed. She told our mother, though, that she doesn't think I believe her, and it makes her sad and a little angry that I don't trust her. My mother is a huge fan of psychics like John Edward and Theresa Caputo, so she's worried I'm not a "believer" now, and I'm not really sure how to talk to them about it. It's been really awkward lately. ):
"She and I" were born at 2:22 . . . NOT "Her and myself" were born at 2:22 . . .
The more you think about the idea of grandma being behind the text from the friend, the less sense it makes.
Psychics always pissed me off but I am even more pissed off by them now because a friend of mine sees one to talk to her dead parents. I used to respond with a blank, "mmhmm" when she would talk about the psychic, until one day she said that I should go with her to talk to a close friend of mine who died many years ago. I tried to respond in a restrained way but I couldn't really help the disgust and vitriol that came out when I said I didn't want to do that. Thankfully she hasn't talked about her psychic since. And no I haven't tried to talk her out of going, I know that she won't listen.
That's incredibly sad and your friend is being taken advantage of. I don't practice mediumship, but know plenty who do and they wouldn't keep someone coming back like that.
Sweet merciful mercy that poor lady's story where she literally saw on TV a fraud psychic full on steal her mom's hope and her own hope. That's just...oh my gooooods that's too damn tragic and awful.
I genuinely hope that ended up biting Sylvia Brown, but I don't expect that it did. :(
My take on the whole Tyler Henry thing is that it’s a scripted TV show and I don’t think even the celebrities that are on the show believe anything he says. I used to watch his show purely for entertainment, because I’m a huge skeptic. Every celebrity on there had a new TV show coming out, or a book, or a movie. every single one of them was trying to jump start or further their career. So I never felt sorry for the celebrities because it was all marketing and they knew it.
The fact that the Sheldon actor is such a dumdum is extra funny.
That story about Silva brown telling a mother her daughter is dead and the daughter was watching in captivity was heartbreaking. Truly awful.
I have no training in faking readings, not even practicing at slumber parties. I am interested in debunking, and so I do know what techniques are often used and how they work.
I’ve only once tried to do any kind of psychic gag - for free, advertised as “for entertainment only”, and while directly telling people I had no psychic powers. It was on Halloween, sitting at a table on a driveway with my friend who was giving tarot readings. Even with no pratice at all, I still ended up with a line wrapping around the block of people who would get up to me, get their reading, and then walk away insisting I was gifted while begging to pay me for my services. Eventually, a few groups people began trying to buy me off (with cash and liquor) to give readings at their parties. I wasn’t even taking tips!
I will never do that again. Not even “for entertainment only”.
Once was enough to convince me that it’s far too dangerous a play toy, and I don’t want people hurt.
I can understand and respect that, but decent psychics do understand their responsibility to those they are giving readings to. It's finding the decent ones that can be tricky and you don't usually find them on the telly.
This makes me think of the South Park episode in which Cartman develops "psychic abilities" and has "psychic battles" with other "psychics" (he went up against the "Psychic Mafia").
I was going to make a flippant comment about Memaw Waffles or a jumping snake, but hearing the damage inflicted by Sylvia Browne just pretty much crushed the humor out of me. Hopefully, for those who believe, there's a special place in HeII reserved for her.
I met James Randi twice. Once after he visited my college and the second time at Dragoncon. The second time was just randomly in the hallway and he was with his new husband and seemed so very happy!
I remember a story back when I was in college from one of my professors when he was doing interviews for course work as an Anthropology student.
There was an elderly lady who talked about how her aunt was supposed to be a psychic. The aunt would do all these rituals, and people would "buy" into it. That was until the old lady who I he was talking with basically had a "The Emperor's New Clothes" and basically said what everyone was thinking out loud. That nothing was actually happening and she was wrong most of the time.
Old lady told him soon after that, most of her family stopped going to the rituals as much. But it took someone to basically say what everyone else was thinking out loud, because they thought everyone else was fully buying it.
Interestingly, the aunt started to double down because the people who stayed behind were not only the truest believers but more desperate for readings. So the aunt supposedly got a little bit more confident and bold in her predictions.
I knew a girl who was having immense financial and emotional problems, and her solution was to have a 30 min call with her psychic once a week for $150 per session ❤❤
It is really dark when you realize that the reason Brown and other "psychics" say ugly things about the dead is to add credibility to their grift.
This comes after people accuse them of only saying nice and loving things. "Grandma is wrapping her spirit arms around you, and wants you to know she's proud of you."
So they toss in a few negative things. "I hate to tell you, but grandma is terribly disappointed in you, and blames you for her death. If only you'd been more like your sister."
Gee, only a real psychic would say that.
I'm reminded of when my mom and I were at a festival and she wanted to get her palm read, and *insisted* that I do so as well, despite my refusal. The palm reader for me decided that I was gonna get married, and said it would be someone I already knew. I had and still have no plans for marriage, both for political and personal reasons, but I was so angry about the whole situation, even with it being low stakes. Who the heck gets to tell me that marriage is my fate? Why is my mom so taken in by this junk?
That's too bad. I'm a numeroligist and my profile is acurate and has helped me a lot. I've seen books on palm reading. I studied the book and was able to see of what I could understand, I learned the same from my hand as I did from my profile. The problem is true palm reading is incredibly complicated. I couldn't figure it out. Numbers are so much easier. Knowing what I know now, if anyone told me they resd palms, I would ask serious questions about how they learned it.
@@jeremyeblack4987 Look, leave me alone. I made it clear I was not interested in palmistry at all
I hate these predators. They are the worst type of emotional leech. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
6:57 I had an large coincidence like this twice in my life. It turns out people tend to have coincidences in their lives all the time. Sometimes they're big and involve death of relatives like mine did. I know I don't have to explain this to you, but it's actually unlikely that a person will not have some coincidences, big and small, in their life.
As someone who does tarot casually but is also a scientist, i see it as a tool for reflection- if the cards connect you to a thought (like "oh i need more rest", or "i miss my friends/family") then, use that convenient call out to reflect and take an action that helps resolve that feeling. And ive had moments i cant fully explain where i thought i felt my grandparents' presences after they died in a moment of comfort, but that could probably also be explained as my brain giving me a moment of comfort when i needed it 🤷🏼♀️ i certainly don't do it for others for money, and i CERTAINLY don't pretend like i can talk to other people's family members, or pretend like i know anything about after-death/afterlife stuff. That always has felt scammy to me. Especially at this scale - it's absolutely lies with no care about anything but the fame and cash.
honestly, utilizing the brain's natural pattern-seeking tendencies like that is pretty smart
There have been times when I found it helpful. Like, I’d be freaking out over a friendship ending, and I’d get the Death card. It would help me accept that some relationships are meant to die. I could grieve the loss, then move on.
I agree, tarot is most useful as a tool for psychological reflection
That's pretty amazing actually @3:30. I'm not sure if this will make sense, but you can look at that situation in reverse to demonstrate practical psychic abilities:
You said you gave an "off the cuff" example of what a person might say during a reading. Then your sound designer came out, genuinely emotional, saying that was his relationship with his mother. You seem to think he was emotional in amazement? No, it actually mattered to him personally, that something so uncanny would happen. It could happen because in that situation, his connection to his lost mother is so great, he's subconsciously imaging how it affects him. "We're talking about dead parents." In that moment of subconscious emotion, he consciously notices you reciting his life to him. The energy of the thought was so much, it's like he's broadcasting it mentally, before he even gets to you with tears in his eyes. People don't usually cry by mistake. Ideas that were arbitrary for you were identical to ideas core to his life. You reached outside of your personal consciousness for an idea, and he was feeding it straight to you.
Please consider the moments when something uncanny happens to you. The less you brush them off, the more you'll notice there's a bigger picture to see. It's a lot of fun to learn and explore. Please excuse my long comment. Always enjoy your videos ☆ keep well~
It's like either no one has seen or remembers the South Park episode making fun of "Crossing Over". It ripped on every trick and did the "everyone is fake except me" thing perfectly.
The fact that all of the psychics with TV shows have legal disclaimers at the beginning is pretty good evidence that the whole thing is a scam. I suppose that's what protects them from lawsuits, though I expect a lot of them are made to sign disclaimers as well.
They have to have disclaimers by law, all psychics do.
@@Kayebonniestorm I don't know that they're required to, After all, if they were really doing what they claimed, why would you want to sue them? But if they're smart, they'll have the disclaimer.
In the uk they are required by law to have that disclaimer.
@@Kayebonniestorm Ah, OK. In the US, it's caveat emptor.
when i was in grade school, i would convince kids that i was psychic and could read their minds. in my mind, i could literally see branches of guesses i could make, calculating how how often to make easy ones, and when to take a chance on harder ones. combined with a natural tendency toward performance, i've always know that i could have made bank as a "psychic." but alas, turns out i'm not a total piece of crap. (well, not "TOTAL" at least...)
I spent many years imagining I was a psychic, healer etc. I am now 56. As a healer I would think "if you need money for giving a healing then get a job". It was easy for me to be complaicent about that because on sickness benefits I was quite comfortable. I discovered James Randi a few years ago and absoluetly love him. I still hold strong beliefs that are seen as magical or obsurd, but no more obsurd than religion. So often the healer/psychic/medium scene is a cash grab and hopeful titty grab. However, I have met some lovely, genuine people in that field, but then I have also met lovely Christian's. It's so easy to mock the exploration of spiritual philosophy, it's a virtual meme that's just plain old. But the spiritual "community" needs mocking, it has no centre, and nothing about it it credible in the manner of evidence of the afterlife or chakras etc. Yet, I still feel it is important to wonder on our potential, in the knowledge that we just don't know how we have emerged as a species, and intelligent design just sounds delicisious, even if it's just a simulation. Ultimately, the paranormal is like crack cocaine to the mentally ill. I do question, and doubt often, the authentisity of my beliefs, when loves one's pass it's a challenge not to see them as "living on", perhaps we know it's a delusion, but it's some form of solice. I met the lot, all thos psychics from america making big bucks with their gorgeous word salads that lonely middle class women lap up... I am only 1:44 seconds in and had to rant, I love this channel already!!! (personally I really don't like mediums, proper bellendz)
Paranormal in movies: Magneto moves the Golden Gate bridge
Paranormal in real life: a man can balance cutlery on his chest.
James Randi is a legend.
James Randi was a national treasure.
When I was in the Navy back in the late 70's I bought a Tarot card deck, hoping to use it for card magic (I was an amateur magician). Well a shipmate saw my cards and asked me to do a reading like his Grandma used to do (he really believed all that stuff). I was a little reluctant but I had been reading how to do it and so I tried it and told him a bunch of stuff that I guessed from what I knew about him. He was a big country boy from Hannibal, Missouri and had a girlfriend back there and she was expecting his child. I knew he was worried about that. I told him that he would be taking a trip soon and that everything would work out well for him after that. I thought that maybe he would take leave and see her. Well the next day he was gone. He went AWOL and I never saw him again. I threw the cards away and never tried that BS again. I always worried that I caused him to ruin his life by my goofing around. He was probably thinking about doing that and I might have just motivated him at just the wrong time.
He was 💯 responsible for his choices, the cards only show the energy that’s already present and the possibilities that could happen. We still get to choose.
He didn’t want to be there. He decided his girlfriend was more important than the navy. I’m inclined to agree with his priorities, so I hope it worked out for them, one way or another.
Sorry for the off-topic comment, but can you please consider talking about The Cass Review? It's the latest review on trans healthcare commissioned by the NHS in England and I see it being referenced as the thing that "finally brings some common sense" to these types of services, especially when it comes to children.
I took a quick glance, and the recommendations section seems fine (I guess?), but there's been some concern from other trans advocacy groups that this Review tries to astroturf a path for English conservatives to institute more gatekeeping in a system that's already failing to treat trans patiens.
Thanks!
11:43 The bit about psychics saying "yeah, there are frauds, but I'm for real!" reminded me of this quote I found in a 1912 book about professional wrestling by Ed Smith:
"Often I am asked about the honesty of matches. Of the general run of contests in this country I can speak only in a general way, but of those that I have seen around Chicago I will say that nine-tenths of them are very much on the square."
People came to generally understand that pro wrestling is fixed, so I'll keep my fingers crossed the same can happen for psychics.
Imagine screwing up so badly you end up being labelled as an asshole on a Rebecca Watson thumbnail. I'd die of shame, but luckily most of these guys don't have any of that
I just can't understand how anyone watches cold readings and doesn't see how fake they are. I mean, regardless of whether you believe ghosts are real or whatever. It's literally just a person saying letters to a large crowd until someone happens to say a name with that letter in it, followed by vague, universal feel-good statements. It would be hard for it to be more obviously fake. At least spiritualists would set up a whole show with special effects back in the day.
I didn't think anyone was making worse psychic predictions than Jim Cramer. In both cases, psychics ought to kindly stick to telling people about money behind their ear.
Hell with Me-maw, where's my damn quarter?
It breaks my heart when I see people get taken in by these charlatans. I actually remember a local radio station that I used to listen to hosted a psychic on air once. She told one of the hosts about him having had to make a hard decision a week ago that resulted in a loss. He had posted to the station's facebook page about having had to put his dog to sleep. Yet he was amazed that she knew that. The thing he had posted to facebook.
mom believed I had psychic powers as an "indigo" child, so the whole "no one but a four year old would believe this stuff" hit really close to home 😅
Well, hold on -- I wouldn't personally write off that stuff in general, even if it didn't turn out applying to me, you know what I'm saying?
Anyway, just because people above the age of 4, believe in this stuff (IMHO) doesn't mean they're stupid or whatever. Just consider them as being open-minded to the overall possibilities of this universe, & not merely restricting our worldviews to that which can only be sensed tangibly. ^_^
@@TheMouseAvenger "& not merely restricting our worldviews to that which can only be sensed tangibly."
You mean you're in favour of making shit up.
@@RichWoods23 Nooooo....
If you read the main comment I posted, I think that you will perhaps (hopefully) have a greater understanding of my viewpoint. :-)
@@TheMouseAvenger Indigo child is nonsense, sorry. It was a short lived fad that allowed parents to ignore very real signs of ADHD/Autism and blame it on something immaterial. There's being open minded to the possibility of the universe, and just believing the first thing you hear.
@@TheMouseAvenger That they're not restricting *your* worldview? You shift from 'them' to 'our' which makes it difficult to tell whether this was plainly wrong or a mistake in an attempt at sarcasm.
Im extremely good at making logic based predictions that are pretty accurate.
I don't really know how i do it, but i trust my gut and am usually right.
If psychis were real, i probably would be one, but they aren't. Im not psychic and neither is anyone else you've ever met.
They are just good at deduction or are intentionally grifting.
I use my "powers" to analyze material needs for my company and love doing it. If you have good intuition there are jobs that require it and you can get paid without conning desperate people.
Today was my Nana's birthday, she was the closest person to me, and even I needed a lot of time to get my beliefs in order. I also had a parent who was so afraid of death and other difficult topics that they went along with lying and keeping me from the support and tools to process the cold, hard truths of life.
Hee-hoo, I'm in college to study epistemology and cultural/ethnic studies. If my Nana passed a decade prior when she had a stroke--when I was still cognitively vulnerable (I suppose)--I would've fallen into the same psychic fluff to cope. People profiting from our vulnerabilities need to *go*.
In these, uh...ideologically divisive times, I believe it is vitally important for all of us to firmly place our thinking caps on our heads. The "woo" to alt-right pipeline is real, and terrifying.
I am concerned with the amount of people who make videos about the dangers of high demand groups and cults who will then seriously discuss their own astrological signs. I, too, was deeply into that "woo" as a youngster. After dropping all of these beliefs following a massive rethink and reevaluation of the world around me, it not only embarrassed me looking back, but it concerned me looking forward to see how prevalent (and ever growing) these ideas are. Pervasive magical thinking is a dangerous slippery slope for many.
Thank you for your video!
There's a difference between people that join cults and people that independently explore spirituality. Last time I checked it wasn't spiritualists and tarot card readers trying to take away people's civil rights. I've never seen a Wiccan debate the existence of trans folks in a courtroom or on the floor of a legislature, so you'll forgive me if I really don't care about people and their "woo".
If Jim Parsons had still been in a Sheldon Cooper mindset, he would have known it was all twaddle.
I wiiiiiish. That’d be amazing 😂
Has anyone else also noticed that the majority of these "famous" psychic's tend to be from New Jersey or nearby?
Wtf is going on over there?
I almost had a psychic girlfriend once, but she left me before we met.
I agree with you for the most part on almost all accounts.
A little story time.
I lost my husband 5 years ago. My son was born prematurely 5 days later. My husband was my other half. When he passed in a car accident, I felt it in my bones. I was a first time mom who had extreme complications during birth, had lost her husband, and had seen her husband's deceased body on the road while they were working on him. It was too much.
The entire time, even to my therapist, I kept saying what if he's stuck here? I couldn't get it out of my head that he would blame himself so much that he would be stuck. So I went to a psychic. I can 100% now tell you I don't believe it. But it did help a little. I'm still grieving. I think I will be for forever. But... for awhile, it let me believe he was okay. I truly believe he's in heaven etc. But worrying about him kept me from thinking about my stuff which I probably did on purpose. But it needed to end. He had passed and I needed to grieve and start learning how to be a mom.
So... while, yes, it was a crappy way to do it. It did help. I needed someone to tell me he was in a good place. I don't think that's normally the case. My situation was an anomaly. I just think sometimes there are exceptions
You must be psychic, since you told the story of my grandmother's death perfectly. She died on her birthday, and I knew there was a problem when she was ill and miserable at the party, and then in the middle of the night, my dad got a phone call and suddenly left. I was dreading the news the next morning, but I knew what was coming without my grandmother's ghost showing up at my bedside.