Archive for the ‘Psychics and Mediums’ Category

The Stop Sylvia Browne website has moved! If you haven’t already, you should go and check it out.

Link: http://stopsylvia.com

Purported psychics like John Edward and Rosemary Altea are often labeled as generally harmless.  Sure, their business is founded upon the dispensing of vague, useless images and downright lies, but they only comfort the bereaved and entertain the masses, right?

Well, Colleen LeDuc is likely to disagree.

LeDuc is a single mother struggling to support her 11-year old autistic daughter Victoria.  As if this weren’t already a significant burden for a parent to face, matters were made much worse when the educational assistant at Terry Fox Elementary who works with Victoria went to see a psychic, who purported the typically vague information psychics create, suggesting that Victoria had been sexually abused.

How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.

“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.’”

Victoria, who is non-verbal, had also been exhibiting sexualized behaviour in class, actions which are known to be typical of autistic behavior. That lead authorities to suspect she had a bladder infection that may have somehow been related to the ‘attack.’

Leduc was shaken by the idea. “It’s actually your worst nightmare your child being violated,” she admits. “So for them to even suggest that, and that be my worst nightmare, it was horrific.”

Of course, this never occurred, and LeDuc had proof:  Data gathered by a GPS she had equipped her daughter with proved no such encounter could be possible.  Unfortunately, the damage had been done.  LeDuc underwent trials and accusations no parent should ever have to face, and, convinced that her daughter was no longer safe at her school, has removed her from school and taken care of her at home, meaning she is now unable to work.

And all because of one person who, under the false authority of having mystical powers, accused a nonexistent person of raping a little autistic girl.

Link.

Does seeing the planet from space really cause some type of change in people? This article from The Daily Galaxy suggests that some sort of unknown change comes over all people who see the world from space, causing them to develop a feeling of “oneness” with the rest of the universe. Ed Mitchell, an Apollo 14 astronaut, described the feeling as being “engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness”.

Now, chances are Ed Mitchell and the other astronauts who experienced this “Overview Effect” were experiencing a real effect, and it most likely was a very emotional experience for them. However, it is a huge jump to then go ahead and claim that this feeling is a result of a profound change that came over these people. All of the effects outlined in this article could be explained by a profoundly moving emotional experience. The idea that this feeling is instead caused by some type of transcendent experience of connection with the rest of the universe is a giant leap in reasoning.

After decades of study and contemplation about his experience, Ed Mitchell believes that the feeling of “oneness” with the Universe that he and others have experienced is a consequence of little understood quantum physics.

Seriously, quantum physics? I can understand people blaming unexplained phenomenon on quantum physics a decade ago, but nowadays even high school students should have a basic grasp of quantum physics. If he’s going to blame this unexplained phenomenon on some quirk of science, he should get with the times.

The article quickly goes downhill from there.

This is done with Faraday cages. It’s shown that this information at this deep level, at the quantum level, can transcend electromagnetic theory. And, now we’re getting into quantum physics and we don’t want to go there at this point. But it’s a very fundamental notion that awareness is at the very basis of things.”

The verdict? This is just another example of Occam’s razor being tossed out the window in favour of a cool sounding story. Seeing the world from orbit is most likely a beautiful, and deeply moving experience. We don’t have to look to quantum physics to understand why this has such a profound effect on people who get to experience it.

Also, if you think about it, observing the entire planet should only result in a feeling of oneness with the planet — to feel at one with the universe, you should have to observe the entire universe at once.

According to recently unearthed documents, MI5, that is, Britain’s spy agency, hired an astrologer by the name of Ludwig von Wohl to ‘assist’ them in figuring out Hitler’s next moves during World War II. Specifically, Wohl claimed that Hitler himself relied heavily on astrology in his plans.

He said that by figuring out what advice Hitler was receiving, they may be able to figure out his next moves.

The government rented the astrologer a hotel apartment on London’s exclusive Park Lane, where he wrote horoscopes for allied and Nazi leaders on paper with the letterhead “Psychological Research Bureau.”

He was sent by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who did not believe in astrology, to the U.S. to persuade Americans that the Nazis would lose within months if they entered the war.

The good news, of course, is that this nonsense didn’t cost England (and the rest of the allies) the war. There was also, thankfully, an apparently ample supply of skeptics within the agency who not only distrusted Wohl and his claims, but disputed them altogether:

“I have never liked Louis de Wohl — he strikes me as a charlatan and an imposter,” reads the first line in the astrologer’s file, appeared to be signed by Dick White, who became the head of MI5 in the 1950s.

Another MI5 officer said, “None of his predictions materialized, except his forecast of Italy’s entry to war, which he made at a time when this became quite patent.”

This then begs the question: Then why bother? That members of the MI5 were openly distrusting of Wohl leads me to assume that very few in the agency were relying on his predictions as fact, which confuses me as to why they would listen to him in the first place.

Particularly in a time of war, relying on and basing your strategy on doubtful or otherwise dubious information can be a very fatal mistake. Either way, Wohl’s information didn’t, as I understand, prevent the bombing of London. However, something as vague as “[...] the German astrologers must pray that enemy action does not force the Fuehrer into making important decisions within the first eight days of the month [of July], as this would lead to great disaster,” must have certainly been useful advice, right?

Also, as it turns out, Hitler didn’t pay attention to astrology at all. Oops!

Being able to discern facts and details of the life of a total stranger, through a combination of skilled listening and gentle coaxing, is both a useful and a spectacularly impressive skill. The art of cold reading is one that is practiced by many psychics and fortunate tellers, as well as performers such as magicians and mentalists. Though there is nothing super-natural about the act, it is an incredibly impressive one to watch. To be able to perform a proper reading of a stranger requires a lot of skill and practice; and those who have mastered it deserve credit for their achievements.

It is for this reason, that I find psychics (and other mystics who perform readings) so tragic. By claiming that they receive this knowledge from some supernatural realm, or higher being, or merely that it just “pops into their mind”, they belittle their accomplishments. Rather than being able to perform a complicated skill, they relegate themselves to the role of inter-planar interpreter.