Psychic Kenneth Quinn connects Today Now! studio guests with former landlords and friends of work friends who have died for stilted conversations from beyond.
by Dr. Karen Stollznow via randi.org
A fellow Twitter user recently asked me for my impressions of the The Dead Files. The Travel Channel show first aired back in September, 2011, and is now into its third season. Here is the network’s glowing blurb:
The Dead Files team approaches every case from their two specific areas of expertise: Steve DiSchiavi is a Homicide Detective and Amy Allan is a Physical Medium. They are a paranormal team like no other, combining their unique, eclectic and often-conflicting skills to solve unexplained paranormal phenomena in haunted locations across America.
Across the internet viewers rave that The Dead Files isn’t like other ghost hunting shows in that they don’t use EMF readers or record EVPs. Of course, this show is more comparable to The Long Island Medium in that regard, and showcases Amy’s alleged skills as a psychic medium, sensitive and empath. Her bio claims that, “Her abilities have been studied and tested by leading parapsychologists.” She claims to have been “mentored” by the late William Roll, a parapsychologist and big believer in mediumship. Amy appears to hold a BA in psychology and other qualifications in business. However, she was working as a massage therapist in Denver before she got her TV gig.
Her bio also states that she has “worked with many private investigators and police agencies.” There is no proof offered to back up these claims. As we know, there are very few documented cases where psychics have assisted law enforcement agencies and ever fewer where the police thought they were of any use. Even then, their help is never proven to be psychic. A Denver cold case detective once said to local investigators Bryan & Baxter, “I wish we had a phone line that was specifically for psychics to call and leave their tips; and then we’d never answer it.” He added, “If someone contacted us with information that led us to a body then that person would become a suspect.”
In The Dead Files, Amy and Steve travel to a “haunted” location and conduct an investigation – independently. “Each investigator’s methods and findings remain hidden from the other team member to preserve the integrity of their findings.” Before Amy visits the premises, cameraman Matthew Anderson performs a “cleaning” of the premises to remove any pieces of “leading information” that could influence Amy’s reading. Of course, removing photographs and collectibles doesn’t prevent a cold reader from gleaning information. In every episode I spotted overlooked clues, including a cross on the wall. At any rate, she is there because the place is allegedly haunted, and not to read the occupants, as such. Each place is invariably found to be “haunted”.
Amy does a walk through of the premises and Matthew films her commentary. In every episode I have watched she asserts immediately, “There’s something here”. Her repertoire of “feelings” is recycled, and in every show she claims to experience a “choking sensation”, and reports the presence of “shadow figures” and “demons” lurking everywhere. Her melodramatic visions are of typical situations that underpin alleged “hauntings”, including physical abuse, family arguments, illness and death. Amy ends the investigations by having a sketch artist draw a picture of one of the “ghosts” she saw on the premises. Alternatively, she draws an image of something she saw or felt.
All in all, Amy is a cold reader.
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via Skepdic.com
Subjective validation is the process of validating words, initials, statements, or signs as accurate because one is able to find them personally meaningful and significant. Subjective validation explains why many people are seduced by the apparent accuracy of pseudoscientific personality profiles. Subjective validation deludes everyone from the housewife who thinks her happiness depends on her blood type or horoscope, to the FBI agent who thinks criminal profiles are spot on, to the therapist who thinks her Rorschach readings are penetrating portraits of psychological disorders.
Subjective validation is an essential element of any successful cold reading done by astrologers, palm readers, tarot readers, mediums, and the like. The sitter in such readings must cooperate. Fortunately for the medium, most sitters are usually eager for the reader to succeed and are willing to work hard to find personal meaning in whatever the reader throws out. In a successful cold reading, the sitter will be convinced that the accuracy of the reading was not due to her ability and willingness to cooperate but rather to the powers of astrology, palmistry, tarot, or mediumship.
Sitters are often very compliant. A medium will say he senses a father figure trying to contact him from the spirit world and the sitter has only to find someone to fit the bill. It need not be the sitter’s father. So, when the sitter identifies this father figure as her deceased husband, the medium is validated by the subject. The medium is validated by the subject when the medium says she is getting the message “I do not walk alone” and the sitter makes sense out of this by seeing it as a communication from a departed soul who was in a wheelchair before she died. There may be thousands of ways to make sense out of an ambiguous stimulus like the name ‘Michael’ or the expression ‘broken wheel’ but all it takes is for the sitter to find one and the medium is validated.
Selective memory is also involved in subjective validation because it is very unlikely that any sitter will be able to find meaning in every utterance the medium makes. Fortunately for the reader, the sitter will usually forget the misses and remember only the hits. That is, the sitter will remember what she was able to make sense out of and forget the stuff that made no sense to her. Also, it rarely occurs that anyone makes an independent check of the accuracy of the sitter’s rating of the reader.* So, if a sitter is satisfied that a reading is very accurate that is usually taken as sufficient evidence by the medium – and by experimenters who test mediums such as Gary Schwartz – as proof of the accuracy of the reading.
The stronger the desire to make contact, the harder the sitter will work to find meaning and connections in the medium’s items. This fact should impact the design of experiments that are supposed to test a medium’s ability to get messages from spirits. Experimenters should always checks factual claims made by sitters. But even though the concern with factual accuracy is important in verifying the success of the medium, one should not lose sight of the importance of the studies that have been done on how the human mind works when it comes to making sense out of and giving significance to disparate data presented to it. The overall effect of subjective validation should show up in the way sitters rate the accuracy of the mediums’ claims.
Automatic writing is writing allegedly directed by a spirit or by the unconscious mind. It is sometimes called “trance” writing because it is done quickly and without judgment, writing whatever comes to mind, “without consciousness,” as if in a trance. It is believed that this allows one to tap into the subconscious mind, where “the true self” dwells. Uninhibited by the conscious mind, deep and mystical thoughts can be accessed. Trance writing is also used by some psychotherapists who think it is a quick way to release repressed memories. There is no scientific evidence that trance writing has any unique therapeutic value.
Advocates of automatic writing claim that the process allows them to access other intelligences and entities for information and guidance. They further claim that it permits them to recall previously irretrievable data from the subconscious mind and to unleash spiritual energy for personal growth and revelation. According to psychic Ellie Crystal, entities from beyond are constantly trying to communicate with us. Apparently, we all have the potential to be as clairaudient as James Van Praagh and John Edward.
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by Lara Webster via listverse
Empirical proof helps us validate what we should and shouldn’t believe, but sometimes cold hard facts just aren’t available. Even when we don’t have solid proof, however, humans still tend to extend their sense of belief to certain phenomenon. From things we could never see with the human eye to life forms that have yet to be verified, here are the top 10 things we believe despite a lack of verifiable proof.
While conspiracy theories and UFO sightings abound, we don’t have verifiable proof that other lifeforms exist in the space beyond our own planet. Still, many people firmly believe that there is life on other planets, or that life did exist at some point in the past. From video claims of inexplicable objects in the sky, to personal testimonials from people who say they’ve been taken into a spacecraft, we want to believe that there is more to life than what is on our own planet even if it has yet to be scientifically proven as fact.
The notion of astrology is not a new one; people have been making major life decisions by the stars for centuries. Without any real proof that the way the planets and stars are aligned will actually shape a person, we believe that if we are born under a certain zodiac sign we are bound to a particular disposition and set of skills. Daily horoscopes and astrological charts have become a guiding tool for many people, who truly think that one’s birth date determines her fate and can help her make day-to-day decisions.
Cryptids are animals whose existence has never been proven by science, such as Bigfoot or the infamous West Virginia Mothman. Enough sightings and amateur photographs exist that we consider it possible that these creatures really do walk or swim the Earth with us, even though they don’t exist in museums and aren’t officially acknowledged. Until the Loch Ness monster or another cryptid is captured, they will continue to be merely mystical creatures of which no proof exists.
Anyone who claims to have seen a ghost might say that there is proof of spirit life, but skeptics would argue that any ghostly sighting can be explained away by lighting tricks or other logical reasons. At the end of the day, there may never be indisputable, tangible proof of ghosts. While ghost hunters have electronic tools meant to measure ghost activity, results are open to interpretation. Yet, we believe in ghostly encounters and phenomenon – that when things go bump in the night or move suddenly, a ghost can be the cause.
Psychic mediums purport to talk to people who have died and gone to “the other side.” Mediums convey details that they supposedly hear from the deceased to loved ones who are still alive. Despite any way to really measure how psychics come by the information they doll out, we believe that they are someone seeing and hearing signs from dead people. While psychic mediums offer a less than 100% accuracy rate, the desire to speak to our dead family and friends is so great that we overlook their mistakes and grant them the benefit of the doubt.
Whether you call it karma, or just “what goes around comes around,” people have a common belief that the behavior you exhibit today somehow informs what happens to you down the road. With no more than anecdotal proof, we think that acting morally or fairly now will yield positive things for us in the future. Despite the simple fact that we can never prove that karma exists, it remains a principle that many people live by in the hopes that they can reap the benefits it promises.
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by Micah Hanks via Mysterious Universe
What is it about the artistic mind that seems to allow the more remote and esoteric aspects of existence to shimmer through the cracks in our reality? Far more often than not, it seems that individuals who are gifted in the arts claim to be more spiritual and—to put it bluntly—psychically attuned.
Countless numbers of individuals have claimed to be both progenitors of the arts, in addition to being at least mildly “in touch” with spiritual essences that are not immediately made available to the average person. But is this really a gift that many artists seem to have, or is it just the result of the creative aspects underlying the minds of such personalities taking charge, and thus creating the sometimes-convincing impression of being gifted with special abilities?
While there are indeed studies that are well known already linking musical abilities with increased success in various other cognitive activities, a different kind of study was recently brought to my attention by good friend Thomas Cameron, a martial arts instructor and colleague of mine based out of Chicago. Tom had begun a recent correspondence with me by posing similar questions, and then began to posit theories regarding level of artistic or musical ability in relation to extra-sensory gifts. Then he mentioned a study that seemed, at least peripherally, to lend some justification to why, precisely, this might be. The process of the study, according to Cameron, was as follows: …
Keep Reading: Extrasensory Arts: Do Musical and Artistic Abilities Increase Psychic Potential? | Mysterious Universe.
Published on January 30, 2012 by Karen Stollznow, Ph.D. via Psychology Today
Psychic mediums perform one-on-one sessions for sitters. Stage mediums typically offer personal readings, but they also perform short psychic readings to an audience. Unless the stage medium performs a hot reading, otherwise known as cheating, the main tool is cold reading. This involves observation, psychology and elicitation to provide the appearance of psychic powers. Let’s look at the typical formula used by stage mediums, and explore some commonly used linguistic and psychological techniques.
Naming is a fundamental part of any psychic medium reading. The medium mentions a common name, in order to find willing subjects for readings. Additional names or initials may be added, to narrow down the contenders to a single subject. I recently witnessed a different technique used by up-and-coming medium Rebecca Rosen at her Denver show. She began her performance by reading a list of names of spirits that had “lined up all day to leave messages for the audience.” This way, the audience was already drawing connections to the names and preparing for a reading. Her list included:
Keep Reading: Tricks of the Psychic Trade | Psychology Today.
