Posts Tagged ‘psychic’


Random Internal Soundtrack

August 27th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

  Ever since I managed to wash my iPod in the pocket of my jacket, the soundtrack of my commute has been a collection of overheard conversation, transit engine noise, and the tinny buzz of music from out of the headphones of the future deaf community. On days when I forget to bring something to read, my brain often fills the background noise with snatches of poorly remembered songs. I can usually only recall a few bars or so, and that short bit invariably lodges in my brain like a tumor with ninja training, repeating on an endless, maddening loop until I get involved in some task or other.

  This morning, for some unfathomable reason, I got brain-smacked by the opening verse of the showtune Big Spender. I haven’t heard it in years, but that’s de rigueur for these random songbombs. What made it notable was that my stunted, malformed psyche managed to conjure up a version I’ve never heard before. I was hearing it sung by bathhouse-era Bette Midler. Loud, brassy, lungs that could power a small wind farm. I didn’t even know that she’d recorded the song; thirty seconds on Google revealed 2005’s Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook, containing Midler’s recording of the song, a version arranged by her old bathhouse piano player, Barry Manilow.

  I haven’t ever heard this version of the song, nor do I plan to, so I guess I’ll never know how similar it is to the one my brain vomited up. I just found the whole episode mildly disconcerting, and I thought I’d share my disquiet with the Internet. Isn’t this the kind of thing that convinces the credulous that they’re psychic?

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Gullible School Officials + Psychic Babbling = Trouble For Ontario Mom

June 17th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Colleen Leduc, of Barrie, Ontario is a single mother, raising an 11 year-old autistic daughter. She sends her daughter to public school, because that’s all she can afford.

On May 30th, she received a call from her daughter’s school, asking her to come in right away. When she got there, she was informed that there were suspicions that her daughter was being sexually abused.

“The teacher looked and me and said: ‘We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of “V.” And she said ‘yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.’”

Based on this ridiculous cold reading trick, school officials called the Children’s Aid Society, which launched an investigation into the allegations.

Luckily, Leduc was able to satisfy CAS that the abuse was entirely imaginary.

[A] case worker came to the Leduc home to discuss the allegations of sexual misconduct, only to admit there wasn’t a shred of evidence that anything had ever happened at all. They labelled Leduc a “diligent” mother doing the best she could for her child under difficult circumstances, closed the file and left, calling the report “ridiculous.”

This, right here, is why belief in spooky mind powers isn’t harmless fun. These baseless allegations wasted the time and resources of the school, the CAS and most significantly of Colleen Leduc. She’s only lucky that the “psychic” didn’t blame her for the non-existent abuse. I hope that Ms. Leduc sues the crap out of the “psychic,” and every school official who was involved in perpetrating this farce.

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I Thought Of Some More

September 19th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

As every website I read – excepting Warren Ellis.com – is boarded and pillaged by syntax-wielding eyepatch fetishists, I’ve thought up some more holidays to honor shady characters that prey on their fellow human beings. 

  • Talk Like Sylvia Browne Day: It’s all about cold reading everyone you talk to. Make vague statements and generalized predictions, focus on hits and ignore misses. And be sure to relieve everyone you meet of money that would be much better spent on therapy. (It also helps if you smoke four packs a day until the holiday starts.)
  • Talk Like Kevin Trudeau Day: Take a bunch of quack cures and useless “traditional” remedies, add a dash of rebellion against scientific medicine, and blatant lies about the efficacy of your treatments. Be sure to relieve everyone you meet of money that would be better spent on [surgery, chemotherapy, aspirin].
  • Talk Like Ted Haggard Day: This one is a little tricky. In public, rail against sin and fornication, and support legislation that takes away the civil rights of homosexuals. In private, talk about how much you love crystal meth and gay sex. Relieve your publicly pious friends of their money, and give it to drug dealers and homosexual prostitutes.
  • Talk Like L. Ron Hubbard Day: Begin by telling mediocre, overwrought science fiction/fantasy stories. When people start to lose interest, tell them you’ve discovered the secrets to perfect mental health and wellbeing, which are conveniently stratified like the rules of a secret society. Relieve everyone who asks to know your secrets of money that would be better spent not being indoctrinated into a crazy cult.
Please see also my original list of alternatives to “Talk Like A Pirate Day.”
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Scumbag Psychics Have Nothing To Worry About

December 12th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

Bad Astronomy links to the story of Lisa Miller, a San Francisco woman sentenced to two months in jail for using a fake psychic routine to scam $108,000 from a victim who came to her for relationship advice. There were a couple of questions that popped up in the post and the comments, and I think they bear more examination.

Does this set some kind of precedent for the truth or falsity of claims of psychic powers? Can we start rounding up other psychics and prosecuting them for fraud? The short answer is “no.” There’s really nothing here that makes it any easier for the government to prosecute psychics. (more…)

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