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Are All Psychics & Fortune Tellers Fakes?

I saw that interview on its first TV showing and learned a lot from it. Welles was a genius.
I didn't realise he had a related background.

His eloquent comment regarding 'shuteye' (new phrase to myself) being the, "occupational disease of fraudulence" and "a shuteye in the argot of these crooks is a fellow who begins to believe in himself" resonates here.

I have on video tape an interview with the late Doris Stokes, in which, if correctly recalled, she admits effectively being fraudulent, before realising it was unnecessary.
 
I have on video tape an interview with the late Doris Stokes, in which, if correctly recalled, she admits effectively being fraudulent, before realising it was unnecessary.

Oooh, how interesting! Is there any way to share that?
Or at least, give an idea of how the conversation went?
 
Oooh, how interesting! Is there any way to share that?
Or at least, give an idea of how the conversation went?

"It's a fair cop, guv, you got me bang ter rights! But Oi'm not giving back the money!"
 
This film is mentioned in Mark Edward's book Confessions of a Conflicted Medium >


Roustabout Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) joins a traveling carny and unsuccessfully schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena (Joan Blondell) and her alcoholic husband, Pete (Ian Keith). But when Pete dies, Zeena is forced to take on Stanton as a partner, and he quickly proves more gifted than his predecessor. Ambitious to a fault, Carlisle abandons Zeena and the carny to reinvent himself as "The Great Stanton," wowing high-class audiences in a Chicago hotel.

The book is well worth reading too
 
Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker - that's a powerhouse trio of acting right there!
 
Did anyone actually predict the pandemic that has been ongoing this year, reading the Asparagus woman she seems to have missed what surely is the biggest news of the year, it really is no good after the event is it
Well there was, apparently, this..

1600518729307.png



And this.... (although apparently it would be cured in about 2 months...)
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/engli...hic-who-predicted-coronavirus-guesses-its-end
 
They're not so baaad.
 
In my opinion 99.% of self-confessed mediums / psychics are definitely bogus, however I have written before on this forum, that I used to live in a street where a few doors along, a neighbour claimed to be psychic.

I do remember that once I was standing in a local post office queue, and in front of me, also queuing was a young girl who lived in the next street to mine.

The psychic neighbour entered the post office, and took her place at the back of the queue, but I noticed that she was looking quizzingly at the young girl standing just ahead of me. She then approached the girl and asked that when she had finished with her transaction, could she talk to her outside.

To cut a long story short, I later found out that the psychic had advised the young girl (who she was friendly with) to seek medical advice as she was pregnant.

The girl did as advised, and was shocked to find out she was indeed pregnant.

The psychic then claimed that she will have twins, one of each sex. Twins were born, but both babies were girls, so the psychic got that bit wrong.

Still very odd though.
 
This guy comes over as a natural but then I looked at his fees out of interest and it stars with $175 for a 1 2 1 reading right up to $725 for a shared reading of 5 ?
 
In my opinion 99.% of self-confessed mediums / psychics are definitely bogus, however I have written before on this forum, that I used to live in a street where a few doors along, a neighbour claimed to be psychic.

I do remember that once I was standing in a local post office queue, and in front of me, also queuing was a young girl who lived in the next street to mine.

The psychic neighbour entered the post office, and took her place at the back of the queue, but I noticed that she was looking quizzingly at the young girl standing just ahead of me. She then approached the girl and asked that when she had finished with her transaction, could she talk to her outside.

To cut a long story short, I later found out that the psychic had advised the young girl (who she was friendly with) to seek medical advice as she was pregnant.

The girl did as advised, and was shocked to find out she was indeed pregnant.

The psychic then claimed that she will have twins, one of each sex. Twins were born, but both babies were girls, so the psychic got that bit wrong.

Still very odd though.

I used to go to jumble sales when my kids were small. At one, a woman who was serving kept showing me baby and maternity clothes.
'Look at this! Brand new! Just what you need!' etc.

Yup, I was indeed pregnant, although still at the stage where I hadn't even started counting on my fingers and frowning. As the old ladies'd say, I'd only just pulled me drawers up!

I have spotted very early pregnancy in women I know reasonably well, there are indications.
But this was long before I could have been showing even those little signs, and she didn't know me at all.
 
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Does this resonate?:

PM=Psychic Medium
AM=Audience Member

PM: 'There's someone over here in the audience that has a connection... I'm getting the letter 'M'.

AM: My mum... Mary?

PM: Tell me about her.

AM: She passed away last year.

PM: Well, she's come through tonight to let you know everything's OK and not to worry.

She's showing me something... it's a ring... she says you will understand.

AM: YES!!! Mum was always losing her wedding ring!!!

PM: She's laughing, does that make sense?

AM: YES!!! Mum would sometimes laugh at the silliest things.

PM: She's now showing me a flower and says you will know what it means.

AM: Mum so loved roses!!! We even planted a rose bush in her garden.

PM: She's smiling and knew you would understand.

Mum's leaving us now and there's another spirit coming through... to my left in the audience I'm getting a 'T' sound, maybe 'T-R', or 'T-O'...

*AFTERMATH*

How was your experience AM?

AM: It was brilliant!!! The medium contacted mum and she was telling him about the rose bush and how we used to laugh when she was always losing her ring when she had a bath. The medium knew everything....
 
An interesting video on the antics of t.v psychic Sylvia Browne who created a multi million dollar empire based on her claimed abilities.

Sylvia Browne: Psychic Fraud (2020) An investigation into how a television personality duped millions as a psychic and spiritual leader [00:24:34]

Sylvia Browne was once the best known television psychic in America, appearing on daytime talkshows like Montel through the 1990s and 2000s. Despite a folksy image carefully cultivated by Sylvia, the duplicitous life she secretly led came back to haunt her after a string of horribly wrong predictions.

 
But did she have an air conditioned dog house? That's where I draw the line. If you have to to build an air conditioned dog house with other people's money because you won't let your own dog inside your own house on a hot day, that by itself is low down.
IIRC, it was televangelist Jim Bakker who did that.
 
Oooh, how interesting! Is there any way to share that?
Or at least, give an idea of how the conversation went?
It's on a video tape and I am searching for same. I'm sure Doris Stokes does admit to faking early 'readings', or similar. If the tape is still playable, I shall simply video the segment on my mobile and upload it, with a link. Hoping to be able later today. :)
 
Does this resonate?:

PM=Psychic Medium
AM=Audience Member

PM: 'There's someone over here in the audience that has a connection... I'm getting the letter 'M'.

AM: My mum... Mary?

PM: Tell me about her.

AM: She passed away last year.

PM: Well, she's come through tonight to let you know everything's OK and not to worry.

She's showing me something... it's a ring... she says you will understand.

AM: YES!!! Mum was always losing her wedding ring!!!

PM: She's laughing, does that make sense?

AM: YES!!! Mum would sometimes laugh at the silliest things.

PM: She's now showing me a flower and says you will know what it means.

AM: Mum so loved roses!!! We even planted a rose bush in her garden.

PM: She's smiling and knew you would understand.

Mum's leaving us now and there's another spirit coming through... to my left in the audience I'm getting a 'T' sound, maybe 'T-R', or 'T-O'...

*AFTERMATH*

How was your experience AM?

AM: It was brilliant!!! The medium contacted mum and she was telling him about the rose bush and how we used to laugh when she was always losing her ring when she had a bath. The medium knew everything....
What surprises me is how people are so easily duped by this stuff. Another one I've heard people fall for is the "you're going to go on a nice holiday" routine. So the punter goes on a holiday and has a nice time. Therefore the guy/gal is a genuine psychic. As I have blathered on about ad infinitum previously here, my experiences were totally different to this type of stuff.
 
What surprises me is how people are so easily duped by this stuff. Another one I've heard people fall for is the "you're going to go on a nice holiday" routine. So the punter goes on a holiday and has a nice time. Therefore the guy/gal is a genuine psychic. As I have blathered on about ad infinitum previously here, my experiences were totally different to this type of stuff.

Most people would expect a bit more than a you're going to go on a nice holiday routine.


Anyway...
Someone who was learning to read palms once asked to practice on me, to which of course I happily agreed.

She said she saw me on holiday, possibly in Egypt. Ooo, lovely, I said, I've always wanted to go there!

Well,
she said, I see donkeys and sand, so it could be Blackpool.

:rollingw:
 
One of my friends used to have a caravan in a holiday park and one of her friends did as well.
They both went to psychic who worked from a store down there, and she told my friend that she would soon be saying goodbye to her friend and that her friend was having an affair.
Well of course her friend laughed it off and was always holding hands with her husband.
My friend had thought that maybe they would argue and say goodbye that way.
A few months later her friend died of a heart attack and she mourned her for a long time.
Some years have passed and she recently rang her friend's husband to tell him about another death of someone they knew.
He angrily accused her of knowing that his late wife had been having an affair with their next door neighbour and he only found out about it from the man's wife.
 
A fortune-teller* whom I knew well was approached by a comparatively recent widow. Having done her duty towards Late Hubby, she now fancied a bit of fun and perhaps a relationship or two.

She was told of a vision of a lovely scene with beautiful music and flowers, and beams of bright sunlight through stained glass lighting the faces of a large gathering of people, all thinking lovingly of her...

Wow, she said, sounds like I'm getting married again! and went off full of hope.

er...

*Yup, that's what she called herself, 'an old-fashioned fortune teller'.
 
Another one I've heard people fall for is the "you're going to go on a nice holiday" routine. So the punter goes on a holiday and has a nice time. Therefore the guy/gal is a genuine psychic.
There are so many subjects which can be suggested as either happening in the future, or happened in the past and open to interpretation. To the extent that, if we go back to our Psycic Medium for one last time, even these mundane examples would be sufficient:

PM=Psychic Medium
AM=Audience Member

PM: She's showing me the image of a bridge and says you will understand.

AM: A bridge... Oh yes! We had to cross a motorway bridge every time we went to see my brother.

PM: Do you still visit him?

AM: Yes (so, he's alive)

PM: Well you can tell him mum passes on her love and... are there grandchildren?

AM: Yes, two boys...

PM: She's smiling and you are being told mum is always watching over them.

AM: I have a son and two daughters.

PM: I was just coming to that! Mum can only get messages through one at a time.

She's with them. She's wants you to know that. You will see little signs, maybe things going missing for no reason and them turn up unexpectedly.

AM: Yes, Yes, it happens all the time!

PM: That's her way of letting you know and it will keep occurring, so don't worry.

There's an image of something small and round, she's trying to show me.

AM: I can't think what that could be.

She's holding it in her open hands...

AM: An onion?

PM: She's smiling.

AM: Oh my goodness, yes, we would sometimes cook together.

PM: And a fruit, she's now holding a fruit.

AM: Is it a banana?

PM: Yes, yes it is.

AM: That was mum's favourite and she would make a banana cake.

PM: Mum's leaving us now, so she wants to say goodbye and you have to keep looking out for signs of her presence.

She says... one last thing... and I'm just trying to get the message through...

Have you had any recent incidents where something suddenly happened, like a house appliances failure, or...

AM: Yes!! The hall lightbulb blew last week!

PM: That's mum, she says.

Mum's left us now and to my right there's someone who has only recently lost a loved one...

When I say recently, it might be within the last year...

Or couple of years...

AM: Auntie Doris died 4 years ago and I wondered if she might come through tonight...

PM: So, you were thinking about her recently, I see, now it's clear, that's what she's trying to tell me.

She's showing me pain in the chest area, does that make sense...

AM: She fell and banged her head.

I understand now, that's why she's touching her head. Doris says she was pointing to a broken heart, because she passed too early.

Tell me about the river... and there's something about a holiday...
 
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