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Antiques Ghost Show

M

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Aug 18, 2002
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It sounds like the product of some TV execs fevered coke-induced dream

In this EXCLUSIVE first, Derek is joined by Anthony Adolph (genealogist) and Chris Gower (antiques expert) to bring you the ANTIQUES GHOST SHOW.

This unique programme sees members of the public bringing along their family heirlooms to see whether Derek, Anthony and Chris can unravel the mysteries surrounding these objects.
Click to expand...

From the cahced version of this page:
www.derekacorah.co.uk/antiquesghostshow.html

Anyone see this?

Its on on Saturday on Ftn:
www.ftn.tv/listings.html
 
Frankly, that sounds riotous.

Whatever Derek says will be totally unverifiable for the most part.

Plenty of opportuntity for hoaxing though...

"I sense this item, before you found it, belonged to a great hero, who travelled the orient doing great deeds of goodness."

"Actually Derek, my gran made it a few years back and she's never left the country."
 
Emporer i have seen a few episodes of this programme and
i have to say that although degsy looks dodgy on MH
i think he is a REAL medium from what i have seen on this show
a lot of the stuff he looks at isnt on any records or hasnt been shown in
any museum especially the one i saw about the painting he was
convinced wasnt origional even though all the experts said it was
turned out it wasnt origional BTW
 
BIg_Slim said:
Emporer i have seen a few episodes of this programme and
i have to say that although degsy looks dodgy on MH
i think he is a REAL medium from what i have seen on this show
a lot of the stuff he looks at isnt on any records or hasnt been shown in
any museum especially the one i saw about the painting he was
convinced wasnt origional even though all the experts said it was
turned out it wasnt origional BTW
Click to expand...

I agree, he looked very convincing.
 
What's odd is though it's called the Antiques Ghost Show, the skill that Derek performs is Psycometry, which I understood is a completely seperate form of 'psychic' power? So is he a medium or a psycometrist or can you be both?

Watched a few of the shows and some of it is interesting, some of it is outright cold reading or stating the bleeding obvious:

Example, Derek is looking at an old sea chest with sea motifs carved into it and says "Thanks Sam, so the owner of this chest was at sea at one time?" :roll:
 
kitsunegari said:
BIg_Slim said:
Emporer i have seen a few episodes of this programme and
i have to say that although degsy looks dodgy on MH
i think he is a REAL medium from what i have seen on this show
a lot of the stuff he looks at isnt on any records or hasnt been shown in
any museum especially the one i saw about the painting he was
convinced wasnt origional even though all the experts said it was
turned out it wasnt origional BTW
Click to expand...

I agree, he looked very convincing.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear: you're not being sarcastic?
 
I've seen a few of these as well and agree he's more convincing than on MH
 
We are getting cable on Monday but the husband has told me that if I watch Most Haunted then he will cancel it!
 
theyithian said:
kitsunegari said:
BIg_Slim said:
Emporer i have seen a few episodes of this programme and
i have to say that although degsy looks dodgy on MH
i think he is a REAL medium from what i have seen on this show
a lot of the stuff he looks at isnt on any records or hasnt been shown in
any museum especially the one i saw about the painting he was
convinced wasnt origional even though all the experts said it was
turned out it wasnt origional BTW
Click to expand...

I agree, he looked very convincing.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear: you're not being sarcastic?
Click to expand...

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.... ;) ... i was impressed with these programs, i thought he looked credible. I haven't watched Ghost Towns because of the stuff that went on with Most Haunted, I think he has medium abilities but hams up for the camera.
 
Perhaps the simplest explanation is the right one: that Derek is/was a fraud all along?
 
I've seen a couple of these, and the main thing that struck me was how cheap it all looked. The Derek bits are a fairly minor part, he comes through a door with dry ice and blue light billowing around him, then proceeds to look really rather clumsy and uncomfortable when doing the "readings" - he seems to be falling over himself to be kindly to the guests and says things like "thank you for your lovely permission". The other crew are fairly anonymous and sub-MH. The episodes run as follows: joe public brings in picture / vase / book or whatever, wants to find out about its history. Derek gets their "lovely permission" to touch it up until he starts seeing things. Then the antiques expert takes the item round various other antiques experts to get a verdict on its age/provenance &c, and the family history expert grafts in the local studies library. They then report back what they've found which often seems neither to confirm or deny Derek, instead going off at a tangent and joe public is duly amazed. Without wishing to cast aspersions on the show (!) it would be quite easy to do the research bit then the Derek recording later, but it hardly seems necessary as the three strands - antiques, family history, paranormal - barely converge in the ones I've seen. There was one where a woman had a book from her great grandfather, she knew everything about him to start off with. The whole episode seemed then to be "well, what's left for us to do?"
 
darrg said:
Derek gets their "lovely permission" to touch it up until he starts seeing things.
Click to expand...

And leaves a trace if slime on it...
 
accorah

In my opinion from watching both Most Haunted and The Antiques Ghost Show.
Derek IS a REAL medium who unfortunatley was forced into spicing it up
a bit for most haunted. Having reviewed a few episodes of MH i am convinced of this. I think it was an episode of seris 2 i watched, where
it was in a castle (cant be sure) and evette asked him "is there anything happening?" to wich he said "no. theres nothing at this time in this building"
My My she was Pi**ed off and it showed.
As for the antiques ghost show it was his first chance to strike out on his own witout that husband and wife cretin of a team imposing their expectations on him.
So no surprise really that Ghost Towns came about.
I havent seen it myself but i did laugh like a certified lunatic at some of the clips shown on FTN i have to admit.
All in i think derek is a real medium, just either pressured or TV audience ratings for cash enforced or he's off.
just my thoughts.
 
If you're talking about Derek's possesions, then yes, he's just hamming it up.

If you're talking about Derek getting information about locations and people, then he is constantly getting this wrong too. So, on both counts of being a psychic, he's failed.

Remember the simplest explanation - he's been a fraud from the start.
 
By the way, if anyone sees the installment where Derek gets handed an heirloom of a Titanic victim, could you please jot down the details and post them here. Thanks!
 
RE: Derek

hmm i would like to hear Mighty_Emperor 's
view on this as he's been around a bit and has seen many of theese
medium shows.
So emps real or Fake?
your opinion would be most welcome
 
Re: RE: Derek

BIg_Slim said:
hmm i would like to hear Mighty_Emperor 's
view on this as he's been around a bit and has seen many of theese
medium shows.
So emps real or Fake?
your opinion would be most welcome
Click to expand...

Well I'm glad you have confidence in me but I'm afraid I haven't seen the specific show - in fact I have trouble sitting through MH or any of the other medium-related shows on TV. Not only am I solidly unimpressed by mediums but I find the majority (including Acorah) to be despicable parasites feeding on people's grief. It is possible that some of them are delusional enough to actually believe they are in contact with the dead but if so then in the majority of cases someone else close to them is stringing them along. They may also think they are doing people a service by giving them some closure as well as hope for an afterlife but then they should turn down payment.

Granted their act is in the same area as magicians (the magician's tricks growing out of those of the Spiritualists - like ventriloquism grew from Necromancy) but:

1. Dealing with people's grief is a minefield.

2. Its a very crude subset of tricks they use and, unlike magicians, they never have to innovate.

3. Part of the fun of a magician's performance (at least in the West - its a different matter with people like Sai Baba) is that we know its a trick and they give us a bit of a nod and a wink (without ever admitting to it of course). We could argue that people visiting mediums are also somehow complicit with the deception but if they didn't believe it the show really isn't impressive enough to keep people coming back and things would dry up pretty quickly. The best show I saw was by Derren Brown (on his Medium show - which should be shown in schools) and that is because of his magician's background - watching it was still skin crawling though even though he explained it wasn't real afterwards.

So long story short - fake and they should all be locked up. The Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 is there just waiting to be used:

Discussion

So thats basically where I stand - I have mentioned similar things in the past that is a concise position statement I suppose ;)

This, of course, isn't to say that there aren't people who could communicate with the dead I just haven't seen them yet.

[edit: So I suppose I have another objection as well as the moral, legal and perfomace-based ones - a Fortean one:

If there is something supernatural going on in a handful of cases then the fakers are causing such a high signal to noise ratio that it is nearly impossible to spot anything genuinely odd going on.

Thats my general obejction to the fakers and hoaxers but counts here too.]
 
Emps seems to be discussing mediums as seen in TV or theatrical shows, and what he says may well apply in such cases.

But the mediums who participate in Spiritualist Church services do not make money from it (apart, perhaps, from the re-imbursement of their travel expenses). Nor are they preying on people's grief, since most of the congregation are regular attendees at these services.

It's true a few recently bereaved people may attend, hoping for some solace, but the mediums go to people as they feel moved to, and may not call on these recently bereaved folk at all.

I've seen enough odd things at such services to make me wonder how the medium could come up with pretty unlikely bits of information (and I'm familiar with all the tricks of cold reading, etc).

I only regard 'communicating with the dead' as one hypothesis for this phenomenon, but there is certainly something strange going on.

(And in the interests of being fair, I should report that there are some crap would-be mediums out there too, who don't get much in the way of results at all!)

So don't tar all mediums with the same show-business brush. Try attending a Spritualist service - it'll only cost you a few pence in the collection!
 
rynner said:
Emps seems to be discussing mediums as seen in TV or theatrical shows, and what he says may well apply in such cases.
Click to expand...

Yep - thats what I was asked about and thats what I based my comments on.I have no experience with Spiritualist services hence my caveat at the end..
 
Re:Derek

It would seem plausible to me that if Derek had supernatural abilities, that would not make him immune from the rather more down to earth frailties of human nature also, such as hamming it up for ratings hungry MH producers when things are a bit flat. There have been a few occasions when he does seem to get information out of the aether. Maybe, just maybe, he really does have some unique brain wiring that couples into something, but lets himself down most of the time through over zealous showmanship, encouraged by the obscene commercialism of Living TV.
 
Its got to be the ultimate get out clause.

"OK you've caught me cheating and a lot of my work is dubious tricks but some of its real honest"

I'm unsure about anyone else but if I see a dodgy plumber ripping off an old woman on "Builders from Hell" I'm probably not going to give him a bell and get him around to have a look at my gran's leaky pipes (as it were).
 
emps

OMFG
you really let rip there Emps :lol:
i'm glad tho as you truly revealed your position on the subject.
I myself am a bit of a sceptic, tho i really really want to believe,
unfortunatley you are right there are far too many of theese
charlatans out there that prey on greiving people.
BURN THEM AT THE STAKE i say.
I think tho there must be some truth to it somewhere or
neither of us would even bother comming here. :p
 
Re: emps

BIg_Slim said:
OMFG
you really let rip there Emps :lol:
Click to expand...

That'll be the curried sprouts :oops:

BIg_Slim said:
i'm glad tho as you truly revealed your position on the subject.
I myself am a bit of a sceptic, tho i really really want to believe,
unfortunatley you are right there are far too many of theese
charlatans out there that prey on greiving people.
BURN THEM AT THE STAKE i say.
I think tho there must be some truth to it somewhere or
neither of us would even bother comming here. :p
Click to expand...

Good question - I suppose at the less directly fraudelent end of the spectrum we are basically looking at something that is a religion and deals with matters like life after death but is this because of some fundamental Truth or existential angst?

--------------------
I might be leading the thread astray so here are some suggestions where we could take this if people are interested:

Psychics. True or false?
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10093

Before You see A Psychic - Read This Article (some good posts by Keyser Soze which I might move into the above thread)
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16815

For psychics that have been jailed see:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19653

Are all psychics/fortune tellers fakes?
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=541

Or if anyone wants to discuss the techniques used by mediums you can drop into my magic school:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16881
 
This unique programme sees members of the public bringing along their family heirlooms to see whether Derek, Anthony and Chris can unravel the mysteries surrounding these objects.
Click to expand...

How do they do this? :sceptic:

Do the previous owners leave pyshic energy on or something? :sceptic:
 
Yup, it's called the odic force.

Charlata - sorry, psychics tell us that this force is what they tap into to 'read' about an object's past.
 
Who is this Charlata? She sounds like a nice girl! :D
 
Quote:
But the mediums who participate in Spiritualist Church services do not make money from it (apart, perhaps, from the re-imbursement of their travel expenses). Nor are they preying on people's grief, since most of the congregation are regular attendees at these services.
Unquote

I finally caught up with the series "Afterlife" tonight and one line jumped out immediately. When asked about the psychics described above, one character says "Actors need an audience".

I've met psychics who are so egocentric they feed on being in control. And I wouldn't class them as very good actors eithers.
 
Yup, I must agree. We went to a Psychic Chip Supper a month or so ago (it was every bit as funny as it sounds) where there was supposed to be a medium at every table. It was quite as dire as you'd expect - the readings weren't so much cold as warmed-over! :lol:

Did you notice in Afterlife that the heroine's brooch swapped from side to side during her 'performance' ?
 
mediums

ok this is for emps
about 7 years ago a friend of mine died a VERY violent death.
natuarly we were all going crazy over it.
Then came a phonecall from austraila, it was his aunt
saying she had been to see a medium and we were to be told
"He is ok he never felt any pain, because his grandad came to get him"
that messed me up i can tell you
 
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