Over the weekend, the wife and I watched the HBO documentary, No One Dies In Lily Dale. It’s about a small town in upstate New York. The way Orlando is all about theme parks, Lily Dale is all about psychics and spiritual mediums. There are rows of houses that offer palm readings, psychic body scans, séances, and spiritual readings. The town has become a tourist destination for all sorts of people, but mostly for those overcome with grief. I would have been disappointed if anyone still believed in this stuff 75 years ago when Harry Houdini exposed “mediums” for the frauds that they are, but I’m awestruck that people still buy into this nonsense in 2010.
As far as I’m concerned, there are three schools of thought on spiritual mediums and psychics.
- Spiritual mediums are real and provide a valuable service for the bereaved.
- Spiritual mediums are fake, but they bring peace and closure to the bereaved.
- Spiritual mediums are con artists who prey on the unstable emotions of the bereaved.
Obviously, I’m firmly rooted in the third camp. However, several members of my family are in the first camp. I’ve never understood why? For whatever reason, otherwise logical men and women make themselves believe that some people can still talk to their invisible friends, that those people’s invisible friends can talk to dead people, and that those dead people hang around watching living people do mundane things around the house. Belief in that absurd scenario requires the willing suspension of several layers of disbelief. It’s kind of creepy too.
The wife is in the second camp. She thinks most of these “mediums” sincerely believe they have magical powers. Even if they don’t, they bring closure to those who so desperately need it. I totally disagree. You can tell yourself the end justifies the means, but I call that fraud. If you pretend to be something you’re not for a price, you’re either an actor or a con artist. Actors admit they’re playing a role. Con artists keep up the ruse.
If the psychics and spiritual mediums in the HBO documentary had any real powers, Lily Dale would have the greatest concentration of lottery winners in the world. In reality, they charge a gate fee to raise funds. Johnny Carson, an amateur magician on the side, could see straight through such “psychics” and “spiritual mediums.” He used to make a habit out of exposing them on national television. Remember how Uri Geller garnered international interest for his psychic abilities? He didn’t fare so well when he was put in a controlled environment:
The guys was a total fraud. Sadly, people still give credence to others who make pretty much the same claims. For years, several international organizations have offered very large prizes to anyone who can prove their paranormal or psychic abilities. Over all these years, no one has ever risen to the challenge. And what has happened with this dearth of evidence? Psychics are everywhere. It doesn’t make any sense.
Cable television is full of ghost hunters, mind readers and psychics, the most famous of which is probably John Edward of Crossing Over. I’m amazed that the guy has gotten famous from cold reading, which is arguably the least impressive of all spiritualist illusions. Cold reading is an exercise where ambiguous questions are thrown out in rapid succession and the interested party knowingly or unknowingly confirms some of the questions as having validity. It’s just like playing Twenty Questions; when you get a yes, you know which direction to take moving forward. As the interested party reveals more information, the cold reader plays the odds and inevitably scores some hits. John Edward’s show is highly edited to gloss over everything he gets wrong. If you think he’s doing anything more than guessing, then watch this clip. With conflicting affirmations, he flounders around like a fish out of water.
This is one of the least believable cons going in the “spiritual medium” industry. The folks at South Park had a field day mocking it.
This act is basically what we witnessed on the HBO documentary. A bunch of amicable people threw verbal darts at an eager target. After enough throws, they eventually hit the bulls eye. The eager party, so happy to have their hopes and desires validated, immediately forgot all the bad information and held onto the one correct guess with all of their conviction and emotion. It was pretty pathetic, really, and it’s hard to know whether we should blame the “medium” or the customer for the fraud. After all, if you pay someone to tell you something you desperately want to hear, can you blame them for taking your money?
Tags: Documentary, Medium, Psychic
