Harmless Fun?

[Kromovaracun]

I've often heard it said, in arguments with my more spiritually-sympathetic friends, that even if there is nothing in "psychic phenomenon", it's all just "harmless fun."

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2113-yet-another-sylvia-browne-fiasco.html

"... in 2004, on the totally irresponsible Montel Williams Show, “psychic” Sylvia Browne told Amanda Berry’s mom that her daughter was dead, causing her great shock and sorrow. And the mother, Jouwana Miller, went to her grave believing – only on Browne’s word – that her daughter had been murdered."

Here we have another money-grubbing parasite who has treated her clients like emotional playthings and left very real (and unalterable) emotional damage in her wake. I'm just looking forward to the moment where Browne charges Amanda Berry so she can contact her dead mother.

And what about Sally Morgan, Britain's best-loved psychic? In the following article, Simon Singh provides several examples (backed up with recordings) of lovely Sally giving medical advice (including suggesting that someone should not be tested for HIV) and commenting on the friendships of people she knows nothing about:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/16/psychic-sally-morgan-deluded-harmless

Is this harmless fun? Or is it actually a rather callous, nasty and manipulative con?

[Canary42]

A callous con.

[Old_Geezer]

Right, so you pick up a few examples where you may criticise and that means everything about spiritual issue is bad ? Or is it just an excuse to not consider them ? Besides I don't know any believer who would trivialise a belief in mediumship by stating it was harmless fun. You should ask your friends why they opt to do so as they may be able to answer you better than anyone. Much better than just dismissing it as callous and nasty and thus basically ignoring the whole spiritual belief.

[ll_billym]

The 'harmless fun' comment seems to liken it to a 'magic show' or a 'ghost walk', where you are paying your money for showmanship or thrills - which is probably why your friends enjoy it - however the personal nature of what psychics lay claim to be able to do and the subsequent advice or 'news' they give based on a so-called ability that they don't actually possess is where things take a nasty turn.

[Kromovaracun]

Well, my question is more about mediums and "psychics" than spirituality generally. The friends I mentioned are for the most part spiritualists who recognise that psychic phenomena is bunk.

Yes, my question does take a couple of examples. But that's because it would take me a VERY long time to reference the constant stream of self-proclaimed psychics and mediums demonstrated to have been fakes.

Though to be fair, I suppose I could have taken a couple more sentences to reference how magicians and illusionists have repeatedly been able to more or less perfectly replicated the supposedly "unexplainable" results of psychics and mediums - often far more impressively (e.g. Banachek, Paul Zenon, Derren Brown, Teller, Max Maven, Gerry McCambridge etc.)

[RATTER15]

Certainly not harmless fun, it is carried out by charlatans preying on those desperate to seek contact with deceased loved ones and will pay big money to those who they think will fulfill their wishes and desires.
I find the whole thing quite sickening.

[wildwood]

To re-iterate your own comment; it is actually a rather callous, nasty and manipulative con!

It is a form of religion. Some may find comfort in it but mostly it gives people false hope and disappointments.

[RATTER15]

I agree Wildwood, but finding comfort in deceit and lies isn't really the answer though.

[jim360]

Sometimes deceit and lies are all we have...

I wouldn't want to condone this at all, it's horrible what psychics who actually claim to be psychic do, preying on people's fears. Are there not times, though, when we should allow people to blind themselves from the truth, if that is what it takes for them to cope with what has happened in their life. Reality can be very harsh indeed. I cannot, and will not, blame or criticise the mother for trying anything she can, no matter how silly I may find it, for the love of her daughter. I just hope that this did not cause them even more misery.

[Kromovaracun]

No, I think he just means people who claim to genuinely have psychic powers.

Jim: Nobody would (or rather, should) blame the mother for turning to Sylvia Browne when her daughter went missing. I just find it hard to believe that Browne's guidance actually gave her much comfort - she died believing her daughter was dead, and she wasn't. Sylvia Browne removed this woman's hope, and even took money off of her for the privilege.

Moreover, she's done equally horrid things several times before - Randi, in my first link, cites investigations into 115 of her previous pronouncements about murder/missing person cases in which she was wrong.

[FredPuli43]

And the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 was repealed in 2008. It made it an offence for mediums, spiritualists, and psychics to obtain reward other than for pure entertainment. There were some prosecutions but not many; it always seemed to me that 'pure entertainment' did not mean having people taking them seriously, which it is evident that these psychics and mediums intend when seeking reward. Promoting it as harmless fun may originate in the 'entertainment' defence in that Act

The new law replacing it is only consumer law relating to misleading selling and the like.

[mikey4444]

Sylvia Browne was able to do what she did because there are plenty of uneducated, credulous people who are stupid enough to believe her. My heart goes out to the poor mother of the abducted girl.

[jim360]

No birdie, I was explaining the difference between, say, Derren Brown, who is open about the fact that his "psychic abilities" are a trick, and Sylvia Browne, who is in reality tricking people but doesn't think so (or at least doesn't say so).

If anyone I knew felt sad enough about some tragedy in their lives that they wanted to turn to a psychic, I'd do everything I could to discourage them. I don't understand either why anyone might find it comforting to do so. Even the "it gives closure" argument doesn't hold water, since the closure may well be -- in this case, was -- false or a sham.

But I still wouldn't blame the mother for doing so. The fault entirely lies with the man who abducted these women in the first place, and the psychic for being sick enough to make money off the back of a mother's desperation. All of the "uneducated" and "stupid" labels are, I think, deeply unfair. The best of us can be driven to irrationality by love, so why call such people stupid or uneducated?

[beso]

I know of a woman who left her husband, on the strength of a psychic reading suggesting that she would meet a fantastic man that would change her life.

Her husband is now having a great time while she is lonely and miserable.

[jomifl]

jim, I know it is unfair to assume that all people who are emotionaly disturbed enough to believe 'psychics' are in fact stupid or uneducated after all George W. Bush was influenced by 'psychics' and nobody could say he was stupid....or uneducated,could they?

[FredPuli43]

Nancy Reagan had an unfortunate tendency to believe in an astrologer's advice and guidance, with embarrassing results for her husband, who had to deny any influence on policy, did she not?

Of course, President G W Bush was intelligent, not stupid or foolishly trusting. He was simply not as stupid as some of his utterances suggested. Anyway, it takes intelligence to make sure that, when drafted, you get kept several thousand miles away from any danger, safe in the US

[jim360]

I'm not really sure of your point. Even assuming Bush were uneducated and stupid (and was he really, or was it just a tendency to speak before he thought?) that's one man among a huge crowd. Besides which he wasn't exactly emotionally destroyed when (and if) he consulted a psychic.

[ludwig]

// it takes intelligence to make sure that, when drafted, you get kept several thousand miles away from any danger, safe in the US //

Which is why his dad organised it.

Harmless fun is in the eye of the beholder. If you go to these things expecting entertainment, that's what you get - no harm done. If you go expecting genuine and serious advice and maybe communication with a loved one, and you're told that's what you're getting, then you're the victim of a callous and manipulative con.

[Cloverjo]

I had a friend who believed she was psychic. She would never con money out of people, claiming to contact the dead or whatever. But it was a genuine belief of hers. Of course it's a load of rubbish. I was at her house when she had some fellow "psychics" there, and she asked one of them to give me a reading based on a psychometric reading of an item of my jewelry. I was obviously pregnant, and she held my jewelry, thought for a while and told me to "watch my iron intake" . Well done, thanks!

In general, it's nasty to give people false hope, or no hope. I'm not sure if these people -Sally etc. -do think they have a gift or if they know they are conning.