The case of Jaycee Dugard, missing since 1991 and found in a backyard prison, has unearthed a psychic named Dayle Schear who says she knew all along that Jaycee was alive. She claims that she not only knew that the girl was still alive but she also knew what the general area where she was found looked like.

Psychics always find a way to be vindicated after the fact. We hear of psychics furnishing the police with information on a widely publicized case but no crime has ever been solved using the information given by a psychic. You have the internet at your disposal – go prove me wrong.

Haunting Evidence, a documentary television series detailing the efforts of a psychic profiler, a medium, and a paranormal investigator to investigate “cold case” homicide and missing persons cases ran for three seasons without one case being solved. Psychics like Alison Dubois and Sylvia Browne make a lot of money talking about their psychic abilities. Why don’t they take a break and help the FBI and the police find some missing people or solve some murders?

This video demonstrates one psychic’s attempts to get information about tools that might have been involved in crimes.

I am reluctant to think of Edgar Cayce as a conscious fraud. He seems like a nice, sincere guy who really believes his dreams help sick people. The sceptics who look for solid, verifiable evidence say that his diagnoses and predictions are couche in the same vague language as any fraudulent psychic and his successful predictions are talked up by hid supporters and his failures explained away or ignored.

The fact is, Cayce’s followers do not believe that he has any failures,even though he is supposed to have tried to use his powers to find the Lindbergh baby with a resounding lack of results.

If I really think about it, reading about Edgar Cayce’s incoherent ramblings and comical attempts at explaining the cause of illnesses is one of my life’s disappointments. I really WANTED to believe in him. But looking at the facts, I can’t.

Here is a video of Edgar Cayce taken in 1939 outside an A.R.E. meeting. His closing remarks at the conference finished by putting to the assenbly the question, “What am I doing about my concept of the force I call God?” If this question was at the front of Cayce’s mind during his life it shows that faith and sincerity don’t necessarily dispel delusion.

Derren Brown is a guy who has learnt how to take advantage of people’s talent for self delusion. It’s not that people who believe in psychics are stupid – it’s just that the principles of the mechanics of human behavior are not generally known.

If we are really going to ever understand how psychics, tarot readers and astrologers have such an influence over us, we need to read up on the latest research being done on how our brains and body interact. Obviously the things kids are told in school are lagging behind the latest research, so we are all growing up in ignorance.

Here is a video showing James Randi speaking about our ignorance of ideomotor action:

Here is the Wikipedia page on ideomotor action

And here are some more links on the same subject:

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=ideomotor_effect.php
http://www.hypnosiseducationcenter.com/ideomotor-action.html

Cold reading is the art of extracting information from a person by psychological manipulation so that you can pretend to have obtained the information through psychic powers. The study of cold reading techniques presents a great opportunity to study the way our machinery works and to find out that all people, including ourselves are easily deceived.

James Randi is stage magician who is an expert in deceiving large groups of people and has a special interest in how we deceive ourselves. He has had the million dollars on offer for many years without anyone being able to claim it.

To get the money you need to prove by results that you can see into the future, cure ills or whatever your claim is, without any possibility of cheating.

Alison Dubois is another psychic who has chosen to ignore James Randi’s million dollar challenge. Alison says that she became aware of her abilities when she was a small child. This could explain why she genuinely believes in her psychic powers. Scientific research has shown that we can carry outlandish beliefs into adulthood if they are left unchallenged in childhood. She claims to have helped law enforcement agencies with solving crimes but the agencies she says she helped dispute that she offered anything of value.

There is no evidence that Alison Dubois is doing anything other than what is called “cold reading”, and some of that looks dismally unconvincing. I personally cannot bring myself to believe that all these so-called psychics are out-and-out crooks. I think they believe, or once believed, that they have psychic powers. The fact is this is an area where people use lies when they are tested and challenged because they believe so fervently in themselves. “It’s the truth, so it won’t hurt to use a lie as proof.” The reasoning used by many police departments in the past to convict innocent people.

I think Alison has no ability to talk to dead people but she will always see proof where others cannot.

Jane’s reality TV series, Dead Tenants documents the adventures of the Preternatural Research Society as they investigate haunted houses. The society is made aware of the ghostly activities by the living tenants of the houses. The series gives the audience details about a haunted house’s historical background as well as details of hauntings.

Jane Doherty is not your average psychic practitioner. Jane has quite a strong reaction to ghosts. And keeping her reaction under control has never been easy. In fact it is impossible. The size of her stomach grows by as much as six inches. Ghosts can do that to you.

Jane says that this stomach expanding feels just like going into labor. The sensation apparently dies down when the spirit departs. She says it is a sensation similar to cramping muscles and it happened to her for the first time in 1990 when she went into her first haunted house.

So how do you explain this weird phenomenon? Well, if you believe in the ancient Buddhist teaching about chakras, you will know that the third chakra is at the solar plexus, the center of a person’s psychic abilities like clairvoyance and telepathy. Other teachings define the belly as the center of the body’s energy. If you don’t believe in that kind of stuff then you are still in the dark.

Jane has written a book called Awakening The Mystic Gift: The Surprising Truth About What It Means To Be A Psychic. Hopefully the book’s contents are more compelling than its title but if your thoughts are occupied with how you can best use your psychic abilities to help people then maybe there’s not much room left to think of catchy titles.

In fact many people have been sincerely impressed with Jane’s book which not only tells about her life as a psychic but also tells the reader how to open up their own psychic powers. There are people who have come into contact with Jane and not been convinced of her sincerity. One man even writes of how he resisted her continued suggestion that her stomach was getting bigger in spite of the fact that he could feel no change.

Why people put themselves about as being psychic is a mystery. All they seem to get for their trouble is book publishing deals and reality TV series.

According to those who believe in such things, a psychic who really knows their job has the ability to help many people with life’s problems and emotional issues. Some psychics have this ability naturally, others need to develop it over time. Sometimes a psychic can lead a client to a sharp understanding of a situation or a relationship better than a counselor. Cool.

Of course if a psychic makes a prediction and it turns out to be inaccurate that’s when people sit up and take notice. Quite often they either don’t know or don’t care when the psychic’s prediction comes true. Let’s take for example if a person is in a relationship that is troubling him and a psychic tells him that a significant change will occur in a relationship within twelve months, if he finds himself still in the relationship after a year, he might not even remember his visit to a psychic or he would assume that the psychic was wrong. But the believers say that psychic predictions, a lot like real life, are not always so straightforward!

Life is more flexible than many of us imagine. This needs to be allowed for in any psychic’s prediction. Oooh! Accidents and free will are always going to play a part in all aspects of our lives. They will interact with a course of events a psychic might foresee, thus bringing about a situation that is not in line with the psychic’s reading of events. This is great news for anyone going to a psychic for news of what the future has in store: “sorry, there are some variables that may make my prediction null and void”. I’m sure your average psychic has no problem telling their clients that their predictions may be accurate or they may be way off.

If you have had some readings with a few psychics you will gradually realize that they don’t really foresee a fixed event or series of events, rather they see patterns in their clients’ behavior. This is the basis of what people call psychic readings. If something happens in a person’s life to make them behave way out of character, then that is going to throw any psychic reading off.

The psychic’s reading is meant to help the client in his or her life once he leaves the reading. If a client is troubled by a relationship, the psychic may tell the client that the relationship is ending soon and give reasons why they feel that way. The real point here is the reasons why the relationship could be ending. This is where the psychic can make the client aware of certain behaviors that he or she can change to improve not only the relationship at hand, but all future relationships. And that has to be a good thing.

There are no absolute predictions.

Let’s look at some predictions from a gent who really seems to believe in his psychic abilities:

Now, here’s a psychic who puts on an impressive show with a little preparation: