Busted!

In my view there are two sorts of ‘psychics’ in this world, the deluded and the fraudulent. The deluded are usually rather sad and boring people who have invented their non-existent gift to make them seem more interesting. They genuinely believe that they can speak to dead people. The fraudulent are far more sinister. They are among the most disgusting and immoral individuals on the planet. These people take money from the most desperate and vulnerable people, tell them some generic bullshit about someone they loved and lost, and then laugh all the way to the bank. Usually they are nothing more than second-rate con artists operating from a tent at a funfair, but a few of the most successful have impressive stage and tv shows, book sales, and psychic telephone services. These people should be in jail.

Fraudulent ‘psychics’ are often deluded too I suspect. Many will tell us that they bring great comfort to bereaved people, and I’m sure that in at least some cases they genuinely believe it. I won’t deny it, they probably do bring comfort to bereaved people, but giving heroin to a junkie brings him comfort too. It doesn’t make it right though, does it? People who give heroin to junkies get sent to jail.

All the really successful psychics employ shady techniques to appear as though they have a direct line to the afterlife. Doris Stokes is reputed to have employed an army of people to research areas before she visted on tour. People about whom she obtained information would be invited to attend her show where she would miraculously know things about them. Stokes was never to my knowledge exposed during her life.

A few ‘psychics’ have been publicly exposed. Peter Popoff for instance was spectacularly busted by the legendary James Randi on live tv. Randi had been following Popoff on tour and discovered that ‘Jesus’ was speaking to him through a secret earpiece. Jesus in fact turned out to be Popoff’s wife, who had a habit of mixing with the audience in the lobby before a show. She would subtly extract information from the gathered people and then stow herself away somewhere quiet when the show began. Popoff would then receive this information from her in convenient chunks through his ‘hearing aid’ as he danced around the stage. He was seemingly able to tell people things about themselves that he couldn’t possibly have known.

Popoff was an expert at what he did. He made literally millions from desperate people before Randi showed up on live tv and played the recordings he’d made. Popoff was jailed. He’s out now, and doing exactly the same thing again incidentally.

Teh tv ‘medium’ Colin Fry was exposed very early in his career when someone turned on a light during one of his seances. The trumpet which was ‘levitating’ in front of an astounded audience turned out to be in Colin’s hand. Colin put this down to the work of a mischievous spirit. He stopped using the stage name ‘Lincoln’ after that and continues to work as a medium.

The incredibly irritating Derek Acorah was also memorably debunkedon tv. Derek shot to fame on the Most Haunted tv show. Twice he’s been ‘possessed’ by ghosts at a location he’s visited, only to find out later that the ghost he contacted was an embarrassing anagram based on his own name, the result of false information fed to him by mischievous crew members. The most famous was Kreed Kafer (Derek Faker). Derek Continues to work as a professional medium despite being debunked.

Why am I telling you this? Yesterday Chris French wrote a piece in the Guardian about Psychic Sally Morgan. She’s been accused by audience members at her live show in Dublin of employing the Peter Popoff technique described above. Apparently people discovered someone in the theatre production room feeding information to her live on stage via radio. Sally uses a wireless headset on stage which she claims is just a radio mike. Morgan has responded to the carefully worded piece with a statement on her website. She of course denies any involvement in anything shady.

I’m 100% sure that Morgan is a fake and a fraud. I’ve seen recordings of her and I’m almost 100% sure she employs hot reading techniques in her stage shows. I’m not really a betting man, but I’d put money on her using the radio technique described above and if she is, she should be in jail.

The story has been covered in the national press and Morgan herself has drawn attention to it on her own website, though I note she has not provided a link to the piece. There will be people at every Sally Morgan show from now on trying to expose her. I’ll certainly be outside the theatre with my all-band scanner if she comes to my town. Either she’ll get busted properly, or her stage show will become mysteriously less accurate, unless of course she cancels her tour dates for a while due to sudden illness or something. It’s always a possibility.

The fact is however, that even when these manipulative scumbags are comprehensively debunked before the entire world, they always come back and continue doing exactly what they were before. I think it’s sad that people would rather pretend that we live in a world where we can get whatever we wish for, than deal with the fact that we can’t.